Huge congratulations to Vanessa Di Maurizio for the recent publication of her first article in Ecology and Evolution. The paper, written in collaboration with Eric Searle and Alain Paquette, was a part of her master's thesis at the PaqLab.

The study explores the translation of the diversity-productivty relationship (DPR), a concept well recognized at the community level, to the neighborhood level. The analysis included data from 10 213 permanent sample plots from Quebec. 19 focal tree species were used to determine whether the growth rate of tree species is influenced by the dissimilarity in their neighborhood and by competition intensity. The authors also saught to investigate the influence of tree traits, such as acquisitive or conservative traits, on growth responses in dissimiilar neighborhoods.

The findings reveal that dissimilar neighborhoods play a small, but consistent positive role in driving tree growth, accounting for 1.8% of the variation of species growth. The research also demonstrates that specific traits do not have an influence on the effect of neighborhood dissimilarity, and that the positive growth impact is observed across a diverse range of tree species.

The full article is available to read at the link below.