Latitudinal specificity of plant–avian frugivore interactions

• Published in: The Journal of animal ecology 2024-07, Vol.93 (7), p.958-969
• Main Authors: Ten Caten, Cleber, Dallas, Tad
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animals; Availability; Birds - physiology; Frugivores; functional dissimilarity; Geography; Herbivory; interaction specificity; Latitude; latitudinal patterns; phylogenetic distance; Phylogeny; Plants - classification; plant–frugivore interaction; Resource availability; Species; Species Specificity; Statistical analysis; taxonomic specificity; Tropical environments
• ISSN: 0021-8790; 1365-2656; 1365-2656
• DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.14116

Broad‐scale assessments of plant–frugivore interactions indicate the existence of a latitudinal gradient in interaction specialization. The specificity (i.e. the similarity of the interacting partners) of plant–frugivore interactions could also change latitudinally given that differences in resource availability could favour species to become more or less specific in their interactions across latitudes. Species occurring in the tropics could be more taxonomically, phylogenetically and functionally specific in their interactions because of a wide range of resources that are constantly available in these regions that would allow these species to become more specialized in their resource usage. We used a data set on plant–avian frugivore interactions spanning a wide latitudinal range to examine these predictions, and we evaluated the relationship between latitude and taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional specificity of plant and frugivore interactions. These relationships were assessed using data on population interactions (population level), species means (species level) and community means (community level). We found that the specificity of plant–frugivore interactions is generally not different from null models. Although statistically significant relationships were often observed between latitude and the specificity of plant–frugivore interactions, the direction of these relationships was variable and they also were generally weak and had low explanatory power. These results were consistent across the three specificity measures and levels of organization, suggesting that there might be an interplay between different mechanisms driving the interactions between plants and frugivores across latitudes. We show that although there is often a significant latitudinal trend in the specificity of plant and frugivore interactions, these relationships do not seem to be predictive or generalizable across different taxonomic scales or measures of specificity that we considered.