Pairwise species associations in the perennial vegetation of the northern Chihuahuan Desert. Turner, S., Johnson, A., & Whitford, W. G. The Southwestern Naturalist, 2004.
Pairwise species associations in the perennial vegetation of the northern Chihuahuan Desert [pdf]Paper  abstract   bibtex   
We analyzed pairwise species associations based on presence/absence data from transects of perennial vegetation at 129 sites located in the northern Chihuahuan Desert. The sites were chosen to represent the range of commonly encountered desert vegetation types from grassland to shrubland. Twenty-four significant associations were found, all of which were positive (i.e., the species pairs co-occurred more frequently than would be expected by chance). Some of the species associations identified by our analysis have been noted in the literature previously but others have not and warrant further investigation. Given the nature and scale of the data used in our analysis, the associations we uncovered most likely represent species with similarities in ecological requirements or tolerances but might or might not indicate strong interaction at the scale of individual plants.

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