There’s a more thoughtful way of designing this. In the permaculture world, these would be called “guilds”. Species are selected with an understanding of canopy layers (so that plants don’t compete for sunlight and can still fill in spaces at each canopy layer), and ecological function (such as, nitrogen fixer, dynamic accumulators, pollinator attractors, habitats, etc)
If you randomly mix up species in temperate forests that are all competing in the same canopy layer, I can see more competition. A study done where say, a mix of overstory, understory, and shrub (such as berries), would be more insightful.
I’d love to see a resource where someone could select their location and have example guilds like this provided. Every time I’ve looked it seemed like the only way to find out was to take a permaculture design course which is well beyond the limits of my interest.
These will inform you of how everything comes together, and it starts with an understand of your place on earth (particularly, the lat/lng and how that affects the sun cycle; then regional forces that is discussed in "Sectors". Then you designs zones on your site based on how much human contact you have.
Permaculture is very heavy on design, even if the end result doesn't look like it.
And yes, I had thought of creating a mod for an open source CAD that can pull in knowledge bases and databases as a permaculture design assistant. For example, there is a researcher whose lifetime work was to collect nutritional information for plants from all over the world so that people can select a nutritionally complete set of native plants. It's not more widely known because that knowledge base is locked into a desktop dbms from before web apps.
If you randomly mix up species in temperate forests that are all competing in the same canopy layer, I can see more competition. A study done where say, a mix of overstory, understory, and shrub (such as berries), would be more insightful.