SPATIAL DYNAMICS OF A HIMANTHALIA ELONGATA (FUCALES, PHAEOPHYTA) POPULATION

ABSTRACT In dense monospecific stands of plants intraspecific competition usually results in self‐thinning, the concurrent increase in biomass and decrease in density over time. Self‐thinning may also result in a change in the spatial pattern of individuals, but so far the spatial dynamics of marine plants has not been investigated. The brown alga Himanthalia elongata (L.) S. F. Gray forms dense monospecific stands on many northern temperate rocky shores, and various attributes (including its simple form) facilitated the study of the spatial dynamics of this species. The spatial pattern of settling zygotes was examined in the laboratory. In the absence of water movement, substratum heterogeneity, and a point source, zygotes usually settled in clumps rather than randomly. Within the clumps zygotes appeared to be regularly distributed at a scale similar to the size of the zygotes themselves. Furthermore, the clumps themselves seemed to be regularly distributed. On the shore, well‐established stands of “button‐stage” Himanthalia populations were examined during a period of extensive growth and self‐thinning. Individual plants were initially highly regular in spatial pattern but became less so over time. The pattern of plants dying during self‐thinning was also highly regular and probably reflected existing spatial regularity. However, using a hypothesis of mortality as a random event, I found that smaller plants had a less than average survival potential, while larger plants had a greater than average chance. A consideration of the spatial pattern of plants alive at the end of the study revealed regularity at a scale of 2–7 mm but a random spatial pattern at larger scales, which might indicate a small sphere of influence of competing individuals. The best predictor of mean nearest neighbor distances in the populations was mean plant diameter.