Figure captions
Fig. 1: Overview of the considered spatial processes of plant
and animal interactions within a plant community. (A) Differences in
plant space-use are captured by a gradient of spatial overlap in plant
resource access (‘spatial resource overlap’), ranging from no overlap,
where each plant is limited to its own patch, accessing only its local
resource-pool and making exploitative competition impossible, to an even
overlap with plants in neighbouring patches, maximizing exploitative
competition. (B) We assume a home range size scaling with an animal’s
body mass (left). To investigate its effect, we look at three scenarios
of animal space-use (right), one of which serves as a null model for
animal effects by excluding them entirely (‘none’). Scenarios with
animals are either spatially non-nested, where animal populations are
assumed to be well-mixed, or spatially nested, where animal home range
sizes scale with their body mass. (C) When projecting them in space,
each of the three scenarios can lead to different realized trophic
interactions (right) despite a common meta-food web (left), illustrated
using a simple trophic chain. Note that spatially nested food webs can
also have similar interactions as spatially non-nested food webs
depending on which species interact.
Fig. 2: Plant diversity-productivity relationships for the
three food web scenarios considered, i.e. without food web (‘none’),
with spatially nested food web (‘nested‘), and with spatially non-nested
food web (‘non-nested’). Plant productivity is measured for the entire
community. (A-E) Effects of increasing the spatial overlap in plant
resource access (‘spatial resource overlap’). Points show 50th
percentile (i.e. median); Error bars show 25th and 75th percentile.
Unviable monocultures not included.
Fig. 3: Effects of increasing the spatial overlap in plant
resource access (‘spatial resource overlap’) on plant community
composition in plant communities assembled from 16-species and in three
different food web scenarios, i.e. without food web (‘none’), with
spatially nested food web (‘nested‘), and with spatially non-nested food
web (‘non-nested’). Biodiversity is expressed in (A) realized species
richness, (B) realized plant density, and (C) Shannon diversity. Points
show 50th percentile (i.e. median); Error bars show 25th and 75th
percentile.