Plants Helping PlantsNew evidence indicates that beneficence is important in vegetation

TLDR: A lthough the importance of beneficial interactions as a factor of evolution was emphasized early in this century, the study of competition and predation have dominated ecology, and especially community ecology, during the last three decades.

Abstract: A lthough the importance of beneficial interactions as a factor of evolution was emphasized early in this century (Kropotkin 1902), the study of competition and predation have dominated ecology, and especially community ecology, during the last three decades (Strong et al. 1984). Recently, however, there has been a surge of interest in beneficial interactions between species (Boucher 1985, Vandermeer 1984), perhaps as a consequence of a waning faith in the importance of interspecific competition (Schoener 1982). Most of the obvious examples of beneficence (mutualism and commensalism) involve animal-animal, animal-fungus, plant-fungus, or plantanimal pairs. These interactions typically involve different trophic levels, and hence organisms that do not normally compete for resources. Plants living in close proximity commonly make demands on the same resources. Plants that benefit from their neighbors, therefore, are likely also to compete with them. That potential competitors may also benefit each other forms the basis of intercropping systems (Francis 1986), such as mixtures of clovers and sycamore seedlings (Haines et al. 1978) or of beans and corn (Boucher and Espinosa 1982).