Temporal variation of a plant-floral visitor network in a temperate forest in Michoacán, Mexico

Abstract

The ecological network approach allows the analysis of interactions between plant communities and their floral visitors. However, most floral visitation network studies analyze the interactions with a temporally-static perspective. Hence, few studies have evaluated the temporal variation of these systems. This study characterized the plant-floral visitor interaction network of a temperate forest remnant in Michoacán, analyzing monthly changes in its composition, structure, and dynamics during 3 seasons of the year. In total, we recorded 1,325 floral visits and 131 links between 27 plant species and 74 floral visitor species. Most of the plant species observed belong to the families Lamiaceae, Asteraceae, and Apiaceae, while most of the floral visitor species observed belong to the orders Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, and Diptera. Most of the floral visits were recorded in highly abundant plant species with longer flowering periods at the study site. The constant species turnover gave rise to monthly plant-floral visitor networks with different levels of specialization, connectance, nestedness, and modularity. Our results suggest that plant-floral visitor networks in temperate forest remnants are highly dynamic and poorly connected, which makes them vulnerable to drastic changes in the environment.