Niche differences, not fitness differences, explain coexistence across ecological groups

Abstract

Understanding the drivers of species coexistence is an important objective in ecology. Yet, the multitude of methods to study coexistence hampers cross-community comparisons. Here, we standardized niche and fitness differences (i.e how species limit themselves compared to others and their competitive ability, respectively) across 1018 species pairs to investigate species coexistence across ecological groups and methodological settings (experimental setup, natural co-occurrence, population model used, and growth method). We find that, first, coexistence is driven by large niche differences, not by small fitness differences. Second, species group into clear clusters of coexisting and non-coexisting species along the niche axis. Finally, these clusters are not driven by ecological or methodological settings. This suggests differences between coexisting and non-coexisting communities transcending those measured in our empirical systems. Overall, our results show that species coexistence is mainly influenced by mechanisms acting on niche differences.