PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Michel Droz AU - Andrzej Pękalski TI - Role of tolerance to resource demand – supply mismatch in a model of annual plants AID - 10.1101/075804 DP - 2016 Jan 01 TA - bioRxiv PG - 075804 4099 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/09/19/075804.short 4100 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/09/19/075804.full AB - We propose and discuss a simulation model of annual plants competing for a single resource. Plants are characterised by their tolerance to a shortage of it and the maximum number of seeds a plant could produce in a year. Interaction among plants is reduced to blocking a part of the resource by the plant’s nearest neighbours. Spatial and temporal external conditions remain unchanged. We consider two systems - plants of one type (target plants) and a mixture of two types, when the second type differs from the target ones only by the tolerance to a shortage or surplus of the resource. We show how the life cycle of a plant depends on its tolerance, supply of the resource and how it is affected by the presence of the second type of annuals. We demonstrate that coexistence of the two species is possible, and we determine the conditions for it.