Aim Biotic interactions can determine rarity and commonness of species, however, evidence that rare and common species respond differently to biotic stress is scarce. This is because biotic interactions are notoriously context dependent and traits leading to success in one habitat might be costly or unimportant in another. We aim to identify plant characteristics that are related to biotic interactions and may drive patterns of rarity and commonness, taking environmental context into account. Location Switzerland. Methods In a multispecies experiment, we compared the response to biotic interactions of 19 rare and 21 widespread congeneric plant species in Switzerland, while also accounting for variation in environmental conditions of the species' origin. Results Our results restrict the long‐standing hypothesis that widespread species are superior competitors to rare species to only those species originating from resource‐rich habitats, in which competition is usually strong. Tolerance to herbivory and ambient herbivore damage, on the other hand, did not differ between widespread and rare species. In accordance with the resource‐availability hypothesis, widespread species from resource‐rich habitats where more damaged by herbivores (less defended) than widespread species from resource‐poor habitats—such a growth‐defence trade‐off was lacking in rare species. This indicates that the evolutionary important trade‐off between traits increasing competitive ability and defence is present in widespread species but may have been lost or never evolved in rare species. Main conclusions Our results indicate that biotic interactions, above all competition, might indeed set range limits and underlines the importance of including context dependency in studies comparing traits of common and rare or invasive and non‐invasive species.

中文翻译：

---

生物相互作用的环境依赖性及其与植物稀有性的关系

目标 生物相互作用可以确定物种的稀有性和普遍性，然而，稀有物种和常见物种对生物胁迫的不同反应的证据很少。这是因为众所周知，生物相互作用依赖于环境，导致在一个栖息地取得成功的特征在另一个栖息地可能代价高昂或不重要。我们的目标是确定与生物相互作用相关的植物特征，并考虑到环境背景，并可能推动稀有性和共性模式。地点瑞士。方法 在一项多物种实验中，我们比较了瑞士 19 种稀有植物和 21 种广泛同属植物物种对生物相互作用的反应，同时还考虑了物种起源环境条件的变化。结果 我们的研究结果将广泛存在的物种是稀有物种的优势竞争者这一长期存在的假设限制为仅来自资源丰富的栖息地的物种，在这些栖息地，竞争通常很激烈。另一方面，对食草动物和周围食草动物损害的耐受性在广泛分布的物种和稀有物种之间没有差异。根据资源可用性假说，来自资源丰富栖息地的广泛物种比来自资源贫乏栖息地的广泛物种更容易受到食草动物的破坏（较少防御）——稀有物种缺乏这种生长防御权衡。这表明提高竞争能力和防御能力的特征之间的进化重要权衡存在于广泛物种中，但在稀有物种中可能已经丢失或从未进化过。