Effects of a snowstorm event on the interactions between plants and hummingbirds: fast recovery of spatio-temporal patterns

Abstract

The global climatic change could cause, in some places, appearance of meteorological phenomena considered rare. If we understand the effect of these phenomena on birds we can understand how birds respond to weather changes. We report here the effect of a severe snowfall on hummingbird activity, flower abundance and hummingbird-plant interaction in a temperate forest of central Mexico. During our study we registered 1 hummingbird species (Hylocharis leucotis) and 7 plant species (Fuchsia thymifolia, F. microphyla, Salvia amarissima, S. elegants, Cestrum roseum, Penstemon campanulatus and Lonicera mexicana). Before the sudden climatic phenomena we registered 66 records of hummingbirds, 8 700 flowers, and 6 hummingbird visits to flowers. During the phenomena, there were zero hummingbird records, 160 flowers and zero visits. A month after the event there were 67 hummingbirds records, 1 825 flowers and 13 visits. Hummingbird activity recovered rapidly after the snowstorm, but 6 of 7 plants species lost all their flowers, except for L. mexicana, which received all hummingbird visits a month after the climatic event.