Abstract
Body mass has been considered one of the most critical organismal traits, and its role in many ecological processes has been widely studied. In hummingbirds, body mass has been linked to ecological features such as foraging performance, metabolic rates, and cost of flying, among others. We used an evolutionary approach to test whether body mass is a good predictor of two of the main ecological features of hummingbirds: their abundances and behavioral dominance. To determine whether a species was abundant and/or behaviorally dominant, we used information from the literature on 249 hummingbird species. For abundance, we classified a species as “plentiful” if it was described as the most abundant species in at least part of its geographic distribution, while we deemed a species to be “behaviorally dominant” when it was described as pugnacious (notably aggressive). We found that plentiful hummingbird species had intermediate body masses and were more phylogenetically related to each other than expected by chance. Conversely, behaviorally dominant species tended to have larger body masses and showed a random pattern of distribution in the phylogeny. Additionally, small‐bodied hummingbird species were not considered plentiful by our definition and did not exhibit behavioral dominance. These results suggest a link between body mass, abundance, and behavioral dominance in hummingbirds. Our findings indicate the existence of a body mass range associated with the capacity of hummingbird species to be plentiful, behaviorally dominant, or to show both traits. The mechanisms behind these relationships are still unclear; however, our results provide support for the hypothesis that body mass is a supertrait that explains abundance and behavioral dominance in hummingbirds.
Highlights
The uniqueness and complexity of ecological community dynam‐ ics can be described through comparative analysis of informative ecological traits (McGill, Enquist, Weiher, & Westoby, 2006; Webb, Hoeting, Ames, Pyne, & Poff, 2010)
From the 249 species included in our analyses, we found that 33 species of hummingbirds were plentiful or behaviorally dominant
Species that are plentiful, or that are both plentiful and behaviorally dominant exhibited low evolutionary distinctiveness (ED) scores, while be‐ haviorally dominant species exhib‐ ited a wide range of ED scores (0.015–0.10). This suggests that body mass is more important than ED to determine if a species is plentiful, behaviorally dominant, or if the species show both traits
Summary
The uniqueness and complexity of ecological community dynam‐ ics can be described through comparative analysis of informative ecological traits (McGill, Enquist, Weiher, & Westoby, 2006; Webb, Hoeting, Ames, Pyne, & Poff, 2010). Martin and Ghalambor (2014) analyzed body mass in the context of evolutionary distance among species to understand patterns of aggressive interspecific interac‐ tions in several bird groups, including hummingbirds. The advantages generated by a larger body size declined with an increase in evolu‐ tionary distance between interacting species, with smaller species that belong to different clades than the larger ones gaining some benefits from morphological or behavioral differences (Martin & Ghalambor, 2014) Both body mass and phylogenetic dis‐ tance could determine the outcome of aggressive interactions in hummingbirds, which in turn may influence the structure of their communities (Martin & Ghalambor, 2014). We might expect that behavioral dominance (i.e., pugnacity) arose at different moments across the evolutionary history of this group as a wide‐ spread trait, and as a consequence, behaviorally dominant species will exhibit variation in body mass and present a pattern of phyloge‐ netic evenness (i.e., aggressiveness as a convergent trait, Cavender‐ Bares, Ackerly, Baum, & Bazzaz, 2004; Cavender‐Bares, Kozak, Fine, & Kembel, 2009; Kraft et al, 2007; Ingram & Shurin, 2009)
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