  Ecological trade-offs between species are often invoked to explain species
coexistence in ecological communities. However, few mathematical models have
been proposed for which coexistence conditions can be characterized explicitly
in terms of a trade-off. Here we present a model of a plant community which
allows such a characterization. In the model plant species compete for sites
where each site has a fixed stress condition. Species differ both in stress
tolerance and competitive ability. Stress tolerance is quantified as the
fraction of sites with stress conditions low enough to allow establishment.
Competitive ability is quantified as the propensity to win the competition for
empty sites. We derive the deterministic, discrete-time dynamical system for
the species abundances. We prove the conditions under which plant species can
coexist in a stable equilibrium. We show that the coexistence conditions can be
characterized graphically, clearly illustrating the trade-off between stress
tolerance and competitive ability. We compare our model with a recently
proposed, continuous-time dynamical system for a tolerance-fecundity trade-off
in plant communities, and we show that this model is a special case of the
continuous-time version of our model.
