I am calculating indices for the importance of competition based on a competition experiment involving different genotypes of two species grown in competition and alone in two different soil environments. I would like to use the Cimp of Brooker et al (OIKOS 2005) where Cimp = (Pt+n – Pt-n)/(MaxPt-n – y), Where MaxPt-n refers to the maximum value (here biomass) of P when grown alone among the environments, and y is the smallest of either Pt+n or Pt-n. I am running into the problem that I have genotypes in some combinations for which the MaxPt-n and y are the same and hence the index cannot be calculated (division by zero). It occurs for some genotypes which perform better when growing with a neighbor relative to without. I guess than means that calculating the relative importance of facilitation is more appropriate? Has anyone had similar “problems” and/or does anyone know of a similar index to Cimp which can calculate the importance of competition relative to the impact of the environment?
The UK has a Competition and Markets Authority: visit their website and see if it has anything useful.
I do find it interesting to see how biological analogies have entered discussion of business and economics. I think I understand what you mean by the genotypes of competing businesses, but if you could take one step away from your metaphor and think about the dynamics of the actual problem under investigation that might prove helpful.