TreeDì_P3C Seasonal wood growth

P3C: Seasonal complementarity of wood growth

Water use Theory predicts that diverse communities use resources more efficiently than monocultures. Under water shortage resource complementarity of water use may buffer growth decline. Carbon isotopes (d13C) in tree rings are used to infer diversity effects during drought. Temporal complementarity Variation in growth phenology – expected to occur in diverse mixtures – is predicted to exploit the resource ‘time’ more efficiently – as first results suggest. Using dendrometers we will test the hypothesis that diverse mixtures have an extended growth period. Asymmetry Size dependency of relative growth rates of two interacting individuals can be used to infer competitive asymmetry. Low asymmetry promotes coexistence and complementarity. We hypothesize that asymmetry is minimal in a diverse neighborhood and at intermediate levels of trait dissimilarity.

2019-12-17

2019-12-17