Life history, the schedule of when and how fast organisms grow, die and reproduce, is a critical axis along which species differ from each other^1,2,3,4. In parallel, competition is a fundamental mechanism that determines the potential for species coexistence^5,6,7,8. Previous models of stochastic competition have demonstrated that large numbers of species can persist over long timescales, even when competing for a single common resource^9,10,11,12, but how life history differences between species increase or decrease the possibility of coexistence and, conversely, whether competition constrains what combinations of life history strategies complement each other remain open questions. Here we show that specific combinations of life history strategy optimize the persistence times of species competing for a single resource before one species overtakes its competitors. This suggests that co-occurring species would tend to have such complementary life history strategies, which we demonstrate using empirical data for perennial plants.

生命史，即生物体生长、死亡和繁殖的时间和速度的时间表，是物种彼此不同的关键轴^1,2,3,4。同时，竞争是决定物种共存潜力的基本机制^5,6,7,8。先前的随机竞争模型已经证明，即使在竞争单一公共资源时，大量物种也可以长期存在^9,10,11,12，但是物种之间的生活史差异如何增加或减少共存的可能性，以及相反，竞争是否限制生活史策略的哪些组合相互补充仍然是悬而未决的问题。在这里，我们表明，在一个物种超越其竞争对手之前，生活史策略的特定组合可以优化物种竞争单一资源的持续时间。这表明共生物种往往具有这种互补的生活史策略，我们使用多年生植物的经验数据证明了这一点。