Linking species functional roles to their network roles |
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| Authors: | Camille Coux Romina Rader Ignasi Bartomeus Jason M Tylianakis |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand;2. Ecosystem Management, School of Environment and Rural Sciences, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia;3. Dpto. Ecología Integrativa, Estación Biológica de Do?ana (EBD‐CSIC), Sevilla, Spain;4. Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Berkshire, UK |
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| Abstract: | Species roles in ecological networks combine to generate their architecture, which contributes to their stability. Species trait diversity also affects ecosystem functioning and resilience, yet it remains unknown whether species’ contributions to functional diversity relate to their network roles. Here, we use 21 empirical pollen transport networks to characterise this relationship. We found that, apart from a few abundant species, pollinators with original traits either had few interaction partners or interacted most frequently with a subset of these partners. This suggests that narrowing of interactions to a subset of the plant community accompanies pollinator niche specialisation, congruent with our hypothesised trade‐off between having unique traits vs. being able to interact with many mutualist partners. Conversely, these effects were not detected in plants, potentially because key aspects of their flowering traits are conserved at a family level. Relating functional and network roles can provide further insight into mechanisms underlying ecosystem functioning. |
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| Keywords: | Biodiversity ecosystem functioning interaction mutualistic network resilience stability web |
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