Re. Miller et Lf. Huenneke, Demographic variation in a desert shrub, Larrea tridentata, in response toa thinning treatment, J ARID ENV, 45(4), 2000, pp. 315-323
We performed a perturbation experiment to determine the relative importance
of intra-specific competition on the demographic performance of a populati
on of creosotebush, Larrea tridentata. From 1992 to 1995, we followed 1000
individuals, half of which were in plots subjected to a thinning treatment,
and the other half were in unmanipulated plots. We found no significant re
sponse to the thinning treatment for any of the traits studied. The strict
interpretation of these results is that intra-specific competition is not i
mportant in this Larrea population. (C) 2000 Academic Press.