Subject: Re: Ten things I don't know about plants
From: [email-masked] (Lew Proudfoot)
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 1994 07:40:52 -0800
Newsgroups: bionet.plants

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
(James) wrote:

> I don't know how ca. 80,000 vascular plant species can coexist in the
> Neotropical Rainforest; I cannot fathom 80,000 Hutchinsonian niches
> each one unique.
> 
> James
I've noticed the same things when studying mosses - many similar
mosses within a few inches of each other - are they getting 
slightly different nutrients, and so are not competing?  Are they
competing in slow motion, so slowly we can't see it?  Are they
in some sense symbiotic?  Why do some acrocarpal mosses (in England)
growing on stone appear to have a ring around them where 
nothing else grows?  The simple competition model doesn't seem
to fit these circumstances to me.

Lew