Habitat loss shapes the structure and species roles in tropical plant–frugivore networks

Abstract

Habitat loss is a global threat to biodiversity with pervasive effects on species and populations. These impacts may generate cascading effects on ecological processes propagating across ecological networks. Thus, understanding how habitat loss affects ecological networks is fundamental for conservation. We used a database of 25 plant–frugivore networks distributed across the whole Brazilian Atlantic Forest to understand how landscape‐scale habitat loss shapes network structure, robustness, species role and traits related to seed dispersal. We compared whether these network properties have linear or non‐linear relationships and used centrality metrics and indirect effects to evaluate if habitat loss change the role of species in plant–frugivore networks. We found linear and non‐linear relationships with negative effects of habitat loss on the network structure. As a consequence of shifts in species richness and number of links, the number of interactions and the proportion of possible interactions observed (connectance) were negatively associated with habitat loss. In contrast, nestedness increased with habitat loss. Network robustness, mean bill width and mean seed size were not significantly related to habitat loss. In addition to changes in interaction patterns at network level, habitat loss also favors changes in interaction among species, shifting the species playing central roles in network organization or contributing to indirect effects in the networks. In forested landscapes, obligate frugivores are the main central species in the network, and the ones potentially contributing to indirect effects, while in deforested landscapes these roles are fulfilled by occasional frugivores. Thus, our results emphasize the widespread effect of habitat loss on plant–frugivore systems, adding evidence that its pervasive effects on biodiversity also proliferate on mutualistic interactions with negative consequences for seed dispersal that potentially go beyond the direct pairs of interacting species.