Imagine that you have been working in the plant community onthe Scottish moor. After
many field observations, you have demonstrated that plots withmore diverse plant
communities tend to be more highly productive.
You want to test a niche complementarity model, to see if theniche complementarity
model describes the reason for the positive relationshipbetween plant diversity and
production. To test this model, you plant several plots ofeach of the following
treatments:
Treatment 1: 10 plant species from 2 functional groups
Treatment 2: 10 plant species from 5 functional groups
Treatment 3: 5 plant species from 2 functional groups
Treatment 4: 5 plant species from 5 functional groups
You measure the total plant biomass produced in each of theplots.
If the niche complementarity model is true, what relationshipwould you expect to see
between functional group richness and productivity for a givennumber of species? You
can describe the relationship or sketch a graph. Brieflyexplain why you would expect to
see this relationship.
