Ali Reed

Ecology 460

Wednesday Lab

Strong Intra-species Competition and Weak Inter-species Competition in Marigolds and Cabbage in Low-and High-Nutrient Soil
Introduction Competition can be described as the struggle of life to obtain limited resources. Our experiment is designed to study the effects of limited resources on competition between marigolds and cabbage, both between the two different species (interspecific) and between individuals of the same species (intraspecific). In this experiment, the two resources that will be limited are space and nutrients. I expect that more competition, both inter- and intra-specific, will occur in treatments of low-nutrient soil due to the increased competition for the limited resources. I also expect that more competition in general will occur in treatments of mixed species rather than treatments of single species. Methods This experiment involved two variables: soil nutrient quality and ratio of the two species in each planter. Our class used three large trays, each containing six smaller planters. Each of the small planters contained forty seeds, either 100% of a single species or 50% of both species. The first large tray used only low nutrient soil and contained two replicates of each seed ratio (100% marigold, 100% cabbage, and 50% marigold/50% cabbage). The second large tray used only high nutrient soil and again contained two replicates of each seed ratio. The third tray used half low nutrient and half high nutrient soils, each with the same seed ratio as the other trays. This is a total of six replicates of each of the six nutrient/seed ratio treatments (460 lab manual F2011). Our

class elected to retain the initial large tray organization as indicated in the manual, but randomly placed the smaller planters within the large trays in order to avoid any unintentional selection pressures that an organized placement might cause. All three seed trays were allowed to grow in the greenhouse for several months before data was collected. Plants were cut at soil level and weighed to determine total mass of above-ground biomass in each small planter. The level of competition in each planter can be determined by the number of individuals of each species that grew in each planter as well as the size of those individuals. The 100% single-species planters were used to determine intraspecific competition within the species and to provide a benchmark for determining interspecific competition for the mixed 50/50 mixed-species planters. If competition is occurring, we would expect to see reduced numbers and/or sizes of individuals in the planter Results Figures 1 and 2 show the graphical representation of the yield of each treatment type as well as the values we could expect for the 50/50 planters if there were no interspecific competition taking place. The expected values shown are the null response for interspecific competition. These values are half of the actual values obtained for single-species planters, corresponding to the number of seeds planted in the mixedspecies planters. If there is no interspecific competition occurring, we would expect the actual value of 50/50 planters to be the expected value. Our degree of freedom for this experiment is 4 (total sample size minus 2) which resulted in a p-value less than 0.05, indicating that the results are statistically significant.

Results of Low Nutrient Treatments

25 20 15 10 5 0 20.3 18.5 11.0 10.2 7.5 100% Marigold 0% Cabbage 50% Marigold 50% Cabbage Seed Ratio 9.1 3.8 0% Marigold 100% Cabbage Actual Marigold Value Actual Cabbage Value Expected Marigold Value Expected Cabbage Value Actual Total Yield (g)

Figure 1. Low-nutrient soil data

Results of High Nutrient Treatments

90 75 60 45 30 15 0 76.4 75.2 44.6 38.2 30.6 100% Marigold 0% Cabbage 50% Marigold 50% Cabbage Seed Ratio 0% Marigold 100% Cabbage 35.0 69.9 Actual Marigold Value Actual Cabbage Value Expected Marigold Value Expected Cabbage Value Actual Total Yield (g)

Figure 2. High-nutrient soil data Discussion Unexpectedly, cabbage showed increased growth in the mixed-species, lownutrient soil treatments, indicating a positive influence of the marigold on the growth of cabbage; marigold yield was still low, but not significantly lower proportionally than in the high-nutrient planters. This contradicts the hypothesis that mixed-species treatments would show more interspecific competition than the single-species treatments and suggests that commensalism may play a role in this relationship. In both high- and lownutrient treatments, cabbage yield was higher than we would expect for and marigold

yield was lower than we would expect. This indicates that cabbage is more competitive than marigold in both settings. Intraspecific competition in both species is shown by the severely decreased growth of both cabbage and marigold in the single-species low-nutrient soil compared to the high-nutrient soil. Yield of both species in the low-nutrient soil was between 70% and 90% lower than in the high-nutrient soil. As there is no interspecific competition occurring in these planters due to only one species being used, this must be attributed to intraspecific competition in support of the hypothesis. The competitive exclusion principle in ecology states that if two species are competing for the same resource, one species will dominate the other species over time1. Our results indicate that some form of this principle is taking place in this experiment; cabbage was favored in both soil types.

1. Science Daily. 2010. Competitive exclusion in ecology. Science Daily. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/c/competitive_exclusion_principle.htm