Search

Functional traits can determine pairwise species interactions, such as those between plants and pollinators. However, the effects of biogeography and evolutionary history on trait-matching and trait-mediated resource specialization remain poorly understood.We compiled a database of 93 mutualistic hummingbird-plant networks (including 181 hummingbird and 1,256 plant species), complemented by morphological measures of hummingbird bill and floral corolla length. We divided the hummingbirds into their principal clades and used knowledge on hummingbird biogeography to divide the networks into four biogeographical regions: Lowland South America, Andes, North & Central America, and the Caribbean islands. We then tested: (a) whether hummingbird clades and biogeographical regions differ in hummingbird bill length, corolla length of visited flowers and resource specialization, and (b) whether hummingbirds' bill length correlates with the corolla length of their food plants and with their level of resource specialization.Hummingbird clades dominated by long-billed species generally visited longer flowers and were the most exclusive in their resource use. Bill and corolla length and the degree of resource specialization were similar across mainland regions, but the Caribbean islands had shorter flowers and hummingbirds with more generalized interaction niches. Bill and corolla length correlated in all regions and most clades, that is, trait-matching was a recurrent phenomenon in hummingbird-plant associations. In contrast, bill length did not generally mediate resource specialization, as bill length was only weakly correlated with resource specialization within one hummingbird clade (Brilliants) and in the regions of Lowland South America and the Andes in which plants and hummingbirds have a long co-evolutionary history. Supplementary analyses including bill curvature confirmed that bill morphology (length and curvature) does not in general predict resource specialization.These results demonstrate how biogeographical and evolutionary histories can modulate the effects of functional traits on species interactions, and that traits better predict functional groups of interaction partners (i.e. trait-matching) than resource specialization. These findings reveal that functional traits have great potential, but also key limitations, as a tool for developing more mechanistic approaches in community ecology.A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Made available in DSpace on 2022-04-28T19:41:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2022-01-01 Idea Wild Villum Fonden Many ecosystems have been modified by humans, creating novel habitats that include human-provided resources. Gardens adjacent to native habitats may affect plant–pollinator interactions by altering the determinants of interactions and species specialization. Here, we characterized a network comprising plants and hummingbirds interacting in a birdwatching garden with human-provided resources (nectar feeders and exotic plants) and adjacent Andean cloud forest in Colombia. Specifically, we investigated the proportion of hummingbirds visiting feeders and native/exotic plants to evaluate the connection between the habitats and the ecological determinants of the interaction network. Hummingbirds relied heavily on artificial nectar feeders in the garden, leaving the natural cloud forest for resources. Morphological matching was the single most important predictor of the observed pairwise interactions, for both hummingbirds and plants. At the species level, longer flowering phenology and a higher amount of sugar in nectar led to a higher degree for plants (i.e. the number of visiting hummingbird species). In contrast, a longer floral corolla was associated with lower specialization. Abundance was the best predictor of the number of partners for hummingbirds. The garden created for birdwatching attracted most, but not all, hummingbird species beyond their natural cloud forest habitat. Interestingly, the most frequently visited plants in the garden were native, especially the endemic and endangered tree Zygia lehmannii (Fabaceae). Our results show that some ecological mechanisms determining interactions in natural communities still hold in intensively modified habitats. Furthermore, a compromise between conservation and hummingbirds’ attraction to birding lodges/gardens is possible, for instance by favouring native and endemic plant species that are highly attractive for pollinators. Programa de Doctorado en Ciencias-Biología Departamento de Biología Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Exactas Universidad del Valle Sede Meléndez, Calle 13 # 100-00 Grupo Ecología y Diversidad Vegetal Departamento de Biología Facultad de Ciencias Naturales Universidad del Valle, Calle 13 # 100-00 Laboratório de Ecologia da Polinização e Interações – LEPI Instituto de Biociências Universidade Estadual Paulista “Júlio de Mesquita Filho”, Distrito de Rubião Junior s/n; Cx. Postal 510 Center for Global Mountain Biodiversity GLOBE Institute University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15 Centro de Síntese Ecológica e Conservação Departamento de Genética Ecologia e Evolução ICB Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, CEP 31270-901 Laboratório de Ecologia da Polinização e Interações – LEPI Instituto de Biociências Universidade Estadual Paulista “Júlio de Mesquita Filho”, Distrito de Rubião Junior s/n; Cx. Postal 510 Villum Fonden: 25925

Research on resource partitioning in plant-pollinator mutualistic systems is mainly concentrated at the levels of species and communities, whereas differences between males and females are typically ignored. Nevertheless, pollinators often show large sexual differences in behaviour and morphology, which may lead to sex-specific patterns of resource use with the potential to differentially affect plant reproduction and diversification. We investigated variation in behavioural and morphological traits between sexes of hummingbird species as potential mechanisms underlying sex-specific flower resource use in ecological communities. To do so, we compiled a dataset of plant-hummingbird interactions based on pollen loads for 31 hummingbird species from 13 localities across the Americas, complemented by data on territorial behaviour (territorial or non-territorial) and morphological traits (bill length, bill curvature, wing length and body mass). We assessed the extent of intersexual differences in niche breadth and niche overlap in floral resource use across hummingbird species. Then, we tested whether floral niche breadth and overlap between sexes are associated with sexual dimorphism in behavioural or morphological traits of hummingbird species while accounting for evolutionary relatedness among the species. We found striking differences in patterns of floral resource use between sex. Females had a broader floral niche breadth and were more dissimilar in the plant species visited with respect to males of the same species, resulting in a high level of resource partitioning between sexes. We found that both territoriality and morphological traits were related to sex-specific resource use by hummingbird species. Notably, niche overlap between sexes was greater for territorial than non-territorial species, and moreover, niche overlap was negatively associated with sexual dimorphism in bill curvature across hummingbird species. These results reveal the importance of behavioural and morphological traits of hummingbird species in sex-specific resource use and that resource partitioning by sex is likely to be an important mechanism to reduce intersexual competition in hummingbirds. These findings highlight the need for better understanding the putative role of intersexual variation in shaping patterns of interactions and plant reproduction in ecological communities.La investigación sobre la partición de recursos en los sistemas mutualistas planta-polinizador se concentra principalmente en los niveles de especies y comunidades, mientras que las diferencias entre machos y hembras suelen ser ignoradas. Sin embargo, los polinizadores suelen mostrar grandes diferencias sexuales en su comportamiento y morfología, lo que puede dar lugar a patrones específicos de uso de recursos para cada sexo con el potencial de afectar de forma diferencial la reproducción y la diversificación de las plantas. Se estudió la variación en los rasgos de comportamiento y morfológicos entre sexos de las especies de colibríes como posibles mecanismos que explican el uso de recursos florales específicos para cada sexo en las comunidades ecológicas. Para ello, se recopiló un conjunto de datos de interacciones planta-colibrí con base en las cargas de polen de 31 especies de colibríes de 13 localidades en las Américas, además de datos sobre su comportamiento territorial (territorial o no territorial) y rasgos morfológicos (longitud y curvatura del pico, longitud del ala y masa corporal). Se evaluaron las diferencias intersexuales en la amplitud y el solapamiento del nicho en el uso de los recursos florales para las distintas especies de colibríes. Posteriormente, se comprobó si la amplitud del nicho floral y el solapamiento entre sexos están asociados con el dimorfismo sexual en los rasgos de comportamiento o morfológicos de las especies de colibríes, teniendo en cuenta el parentesco evolutivo entre las especies. Se encontraron diferencias notables en los patrones de uso de los recursos florales entre sexos. Las hembras presentaron una mayor amplitud de nicho floral y fueron más disímiles en las especies de plantas visitadas con respecto a los machos de la misma especie, lo que resultó en un alto nivel de partición de recursos entre los sexos. Se encontró que tanto la territorialidad como los rasgos morfológicos están relacionados con el uso de recursos específicos por sexo en las especies de colibríes. En particular, el solapamiento de nicho entre sexos fue mayor para las especies territoriales que para las no territoriales y, además, el solapamiento de nicho se asoció negativamente con el dimorfismo sexual en la curvatura del pico en las especies de colibríes. Estos resultados revelan la importancia de los rasgos conductuales y morfológicos de las especies de colibríes en el uso de recursos según el sexo y que la partición de recursos entre sexos es probablemente un mecanismo importante para reducir la competencia intersexual en los colibríes. Estos resultados ponen de manifiesto la necesidad de comprender mejor el rol que tiene la variación intersexual en los patrones de interacción y en la reproducción de las plantas en las comunidades ecológicas.

Ecological network approaches may contribute to conservation practices by quantifying within-community importance of species. In mutualistic plant-pollinator systems, such networks reflect potential pollination of the plants and a considerable portion of the energy consumption by the pollinators, two key components for each party. Here, we used two different sampling approaches to describe mutualistic plant-hummingbird networks from a cloud forest in the Colombian Western Andes, home to the Colorful Puffleg Eriocnemis mirabilis, an endemic and critically endangered hummingbird. We contrast networks between two localities (a protected area inside a National park vs. its buffer zone) and across sampling methods (floral visitation vs. pollen loads) to assess how the network structure and the importance of each hummingbird species within the networks may change. Visitation networks were characterized as having higher sampling completeness, yet pollen load network recorded more pollen types than plant species recorded by visitation. Irrespective of the sampling methods, the Colorful Puffleg was one of the most important hummingbird species in the network within the protected area inside the National park, but not in the buffer zone. Moreover, most species-level network indices were related to hummingbirds’ abundance. This suggests that conservation initiatives aimed at the endangered Colorful Puffleg may both help on the survival of this endangered hummingbird, as well as on maintaining its key role in the mutualistic interaction network inside the National Park. Our study illustrates how conservation practitioners could assess the local importance of endangered species using interaction network approaches.

The Cauca department with its biogeographic diversity is one of the most diverse departments in bird species of Colombia. Looking for quantify the richness reported to the date and look at their geographical distribution, we made a information compilation about bird records in the department of Cauca by reviewing publications and ornithological collections in several world museums. We obtained a list of 1,102 species, including 18 endemic spp., 96 north migratory spp. and 41 nationally endangered spp.. This check list is a suitable tool for bird study in Cauca and is a reference to understand different bird topics in southwestern Colombia.