Plants inhabiting extremely stressful mine site environments tend to be specialized and localized, where they express lower performance than nonmine site plants from adjacent areas. However, such a cost may be concealed. In a previous study at a mine site, we found mine and adjacent nonmine plants of multiple species expressed similar performances in the absence of competition. However, a lower competitive ability may be a concealed driver. We aim to test whether costs under competition could explain specialization. In a glasshouse experiment, we measured the performance (. vegetative and reproductive growth) of mine and nonmine potted plants under competition. |
