Improved Deschampsia cespitosa growth by nitrogen fertilization jeopardizes Quercus petraea regeneration through intensification of competition

Forest managers sometimes practice adding nitrogen fertilizer to improve oak seedling growth in plantations or natural regeneration. Here, the higher biomass in mixture to the benefit of the competitor clearly questions this practice: oak may provide extra nitrogen to competitors during the early period of plant-plant interaction or it may influence the balance between intra- vs interspecific interactions. The identification and quantification of active competition may result in new practices for a broad diversity of plant-plant interactions such as tree regeneration, intercrop management and weed control in agriculture.