To remain modern the coexistence program requires modern statistical rigour

Access through your institution Buy or subscribe arising from: M. N. Van Dyke et al. _Nature_ https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05391-9 (2022). A 2022 study by Van Dyke et al.1 paired

experimental drought manipulations with demographic models and trait data to project major shifts in coexistence among a number of annual plant taxa. A reanalysis of these data that includes

comparisons of alternative competition models reveals that the authors’ original conclusions are strongly sensitive to model choice. Furthermore, propagating error in model parameters into

coexistence predictions results in relatively weak support for the majority of coexistence shifts that were predicted by the authors’ original model. These results suggest that there is a

need for increased statistical rigour when treating binary predictions of species coexistence as observed experimental outcomes. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your

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subscriptions * Read our FAQs * Contact customer support CODE AVAILABILITY Code to replicate this analysis is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7460881 REFERENCES * Van Dyke, M.

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Download references ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank M. Van Dyke, C. Terry and J. Spaak for constructive discussion and debate. AUTHOR INFORMATION AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Integrative Community

Ecology Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Onna, Japan David W. Armitage Authors * David W. Armitage View author publications You can also search for this

author inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS D.W.A. performed all writing and analyses. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to David W. Armitage. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The

author declares no competing interests. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION PUBLISHER’S NOTE Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional

affiliations. EXTENDED DATA FIGURES AND TABLES EXTENDED DATA FIG. 1 AN ALTERNATIVE COMPETITION MODEL REMOVES THE PREDICTED EFFECTS OF TRAIT DIFFERENCES ON COEXISTENCE MECHANISMS. A–E, Using

coefficients of model 7 has the effect of removing statistically significant trends in the relative magnitudes of treatment differences in demographic potential and competition coefficients

(_t_ = − 1.68, _p_ = 0.10) (A). This also has the consequence of removing the positive associations between functional trait distances and absolute changes in FD between treatments (B),

absolute changes in ND between treatments (C), and overall fitness differences (D) and overall niche differences (E). ND results remain unchanged from the original analysis. RIGHTS AND

PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Armitage, D.W. To remain modern the coexistence program requires modern statistical rigour. _Nature_ 632, E15–E20

(2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06919-3 Download citation * Received: 20 December 2022 * Accepted: 30 November 2023 * Published: 28 August 2024 * Issue Date: 29 August 2024 * DOI:

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