10.5061/DRYAD.FN921
Wolowski, Marina
State University of Campinas
Carvalheiro, Luísa G.
University of Lisbon
Freitas, Leandro
Instituto de Pesquisas Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro
Data from: Influence of plant-pollinator interactions on the assembly of
plant and hummingbird communities
Dryad
dataset
2017
Anthropocene
Lamiales
phylogenetic structure
Zingiberales
Trochilidae
ornithophily
Poales
functional ecology
2017-10-05T00:00:00Z
2017-10-05T00:00:00Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.12684
107938 bytes
1
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Understanding how ecological processes structure species assemblages is a
central issue in community ecology. While the influence of
plant–pollinator interactions on each other's evolution is well
recognized, their role in the assembly of interdependent communities of
plants and pollinators is still unclear. Using data from seven communities
of hummingbirds and plants that they pollinate from two tropical rain
forest types (lowland and montane), we evaluated phylogenetic
relationships and signal of functional traits, over space and time, to
test predictions on the main processes (environmental filtering,
facilitation or competition) that are driving these hummingbird–plant
assemblages. Our findings suggest that the main processes driving these
assemblages varied between hummingbirds and plants and between habitats,
and even among communities at the same habitat. The non-conserved floral
trait and the phylogenetic patterns (even or random) give support to the
hypothesis of facilitation or competition as processes regulating the
composition of plant assemblages. Moreover, the positive relationship
between fitness and flowering synchrony suggests facilitation as the most
important mechanism for montane plant communities. Distinctively, for
lowland plant communities, the combination of non-conserved traits and
clustered phylogenetic patterns may be a result of either adaptive
radiation or biotic filtering driven by a particular pollinator species
that plays a main role as plant community organizer. Lastly, evidence of
trait conservatism, together with clustered or even phylogenetic patterns,
suggests that facilitation or competition may drive the assembly of
montane hummingbird communities, despite the predominance of random
phylogenetic patterns. Synthesis. Overall, we present a pathway to
identify central ecological processes that may drive the assembly of
plant–pollinator communities. We show that different processes related
with pollination that vary in space and time may contribute to the
assembly of the interdependent tropical communities of plants and
pollinators. These findings highlight the importance of considering
ecological interactions when evaluating community assembly processes.
Wolowski_etal_JournalofEcology_dataRaw data used for analyses of
phylogenetic and functional structure of hummingbird-plant communities and
phylogenetic generalized least squares regression.
South America
Neotropical
Brazil