Phenology drives species interactions and modularity in a plant - flower visitor network

Javier Morente-López,José M Iriondo,Carlos Lara-Romero,Concepcion Ornosa

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-27725-2

Javier Morente-López, José M Iriondo + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-27725-2

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Abstract

Phenology is often identified as one of the main structural driving forces of plant – flower visitor networks. Nevertheless, we do not yet have a full understanding of the effects of phenology in basic network build up mechanisms such as ecological modularity. In this study, we aimed to identify the effect of within-season temporal variation of plant and flower visitor activity on the network structural conformation. Thus, we analysed the temporal dynamics of a plant – flower visitor network in two Mediterranean alpine communities during one complete flowering season. In our approach, we built quantitative interaction networks and studied the dynamics through temporal beta diversity of species, interaction changes and modularity analysis. Within-season dissimilarity in the identity of interactions was mainly caused by species replacement through time (species turnover). Temporal replacement of species and interactions clearly impacted modularity, to the extent that species phenology emerged as a strong determinant of modularity in our networks. From an applied perspective, our results highlight the importance of considering the temporal variation of species interactions throughout the flowering season and the requirement of making comprehensive temporal sampling when aiming to build functionally consistent interaction networks.

Highlights

Biotic relationships create complex networks involving great number of species that represent the assembly of the community[1,2]
The network analysis integrating the whole flowering season is a key approach to understanding community-wide patterns of plant – flower visitor interactions, the information that it provides is limited by the integration and may be misleading if not interpreted correctly[7]
As modularity is expected to increase with link specificity of all species, it may be driven by flower-visitors and flowering phenology, which may generate non-overlapping phenophases between interacting mutualists, and determine the availability of species interactions in the network[10]

Summary

Introduction

Biotic relationships create complex networks involving great number of species that represent the assembly of the community[1,2]. Plant – flower visitor networks are normally analysed and studied using all the interactions recorded in the community throughout the whole flowering season This approach allows the analysis of the network as a whole, characterizing the system in a general way with a single set of parameters and provides information on the pairs of species interacting in the network. Insect and flowering phenology is under selection and affected by changes in climate conditions[17,20,21] such as those produced by global warming In this scenario, it is essential to understand the role of insect and flowering phenology on plant-pollinator interaction dynamics

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