Figure 1.

Design of the virtual experiment combining binary mixtures of a target species (Sp. 1, grey distribution) and a second species defined along a gradient of mean trait values (7 possible levels of Δ) and different sets of diverging parameters (1 to 6 parameters distinguishing Sp.2 either by traits for light acquisition only, or by traits for nitrogen acquisition, or finally a trade-off between access to both resources). A total of 63 plant communities were defined and three possible levels of within-species variation were considered (CV at 0.001, 0.15 or 0.30).