Counting marmots…
Plant community structure is controlled by interactions between individuals that are mediated by shared resources, mutualists, and enemies. It is difficult to study each of these three classes of interactions in parallel due to their great complexity. We propose to isolate the relative effects of each class of interactions by a study of perennial plant coexistence. Perennial plants have life cycles in which competition via resources, pollinators, and seed predators are separated temporally. We will therefore manipulate floral communities to parameterize a model which separates the effects of different forms of interaction on the viability of plant coexistence and pathways of community assembly.