Opportunistic attachment assembles plant–pollinator networks

Species and interactions are being lost at alarming rates and it is imperative to understand how communities assemble if we have to prevent their collapse and restore lost interactions. Using an 8‐year dataset comprising nearly 20 000 pollinator visitation records, we explore the assembly of plant–p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology letters 2017-10, Vol.20 (10), p.1261-1272
Main Authors: Ponisio, Lauren C., Gaiarsa, Marilia P., Kremen, Claire, Gravel, Dominique
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural land
Agriculture
Attachment
Change points
community assembly
Community ecology
Ecological monitoring
Ecosystem
Indigenous plants
Landscape
modularity
mutualism
nestedness
Plant communities
Plant reproduction
Plants
Pollination
Pollinators
preferential attachment
Restoration
robustness
Species
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Summary:Species and interactions are being lost at alarming rates and it is imperative to understand how communities assemble if we have to prevent their collapse and restore lost interactions. Using an 8‐year dataset comprising nearly 20 000 pollinator visitation records, we explore the assembly of plant–pollinator communities at native plant restoration sites in an agricultural landscape. We find that species occupy highly dynamic network positions through time, causing the assembly process to be punctuated by major network reorganisations. The most persistent pollinator species are also the most variable in their network positions, contrary to what preferential attachment – the most widely studied theory of ecological network assembly – predicts. Instead, we suggest assembly occurs via an opportunistic attachment process. Our results contribute to our understanding of how communities assembly and how species interactions change through time while helping to inform efforts to reassemble robust communities.
ISSN:1461-023X
1461-0248
DOI:10.1111/ele.12821