2006/10/31 by Marc W. Cadotte, Donny V. Mai, Samuel M. Jantz +3 · 3 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Environmental Science · #Plant and animal studies #Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies #Plant Parasitism and Resistance
paper · doi:10.1086/508296
openalex publication_date 2006/10/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
The competition-colonization trade-off has long been considered an important mechanism explaining species coexistence in spatially structured environments, yet data supporting it remain ambiguous. Most competition-colonization research examines plants and the dispersal-linked traits of their seeds. However, colonization is more than just dispersal because rapid population growth is also an important component of colonization. We tested for the presence of competition-colonization trade-offs with a commonly used artificial assemblage consisting of protozoan and rotifer species, where colonization was the ability of a species to establish populations in patches. By ranking species according to their colonization abilities and their pairwise competitive interactions, we show that these species exhibit competition-colonization trade-offs. These results reveal that the competition-colonization trade-off exists within nonplant assemblages and that even in a laboratory setting, species are constrained to be either good competitors or colonizers but not both.