Coexistence of a C4 grass and a leaf succulent shrub in an arid ecosystem. The relationship between rooting depth, water and nitrogen

Abstract

Access the paper here. Here we aim to demonstrate that in arid environments the competitive balance between species can be determined by niche separation with either nitrogen or water as the relevant niche axis. To do this we sampled roots< 2 mm in diameter for 5 soil pits equidistant …