Coevolution among competitors can result in traits that promote niche partitioning and coexistence or traits that promote greater conflict and competitive exclusion. We used an eco-evolutionary model where competitors “invest” in coexistence- and exclusion-promoting traits to assess when trait coevolution should promote coexistence or exclusion. We found that communities should often contain both types of traits, but exclusion-promoting traits should more strongly influence trait coevolution community-wide. We also found that, despite being more influential, species invested relatively more in exclusion-promoting traits should be most vulnerable to exclusion by a new invader. This may make communities containing multiple species with exclusion-promoting traits transitory (Nell et al. in revision; preprint).
