The values of par
are taken from the argument kerpar
of pairwise()
, if not NULL
.
smark
in par
must be 1 or “mark” if there is only one mark. If the marks are a data frame, smark
must be the number or name of the column with the plant size variable.
powers_ker()
is a general form that includes many examples from the literature. If \(S_i\) is the size of the subject plant, \(S_j\) the size of the competitor, and \(R\) is the distance between them, then this kernel is \((S_j^{p_j} / S_i^{p_i}) / R^{p_r}\). For instance, the popular Hegyi's index corresponds to pi=1, pj=1, pr=1
.
This and other examples could be coded directly if computational efficiency is important, see the example below.
staebler_ker()
is the width of the overlap of zones of influence (ZOI), used by Staebler in 1951. Assumes that the ZOI radius is \(k S^p\), where \(S\) is size.
spurr_ker()
is an example of an index that depends on distance ranks: equations (9.5a), (9.5b) of Burkhart and Tom<U+00E9> (2012).
Competition kernels seem to be limited only by the researchers imagination. Others can be written following these examples.