title: Morphology predicts species' functional roles and their degree of specialization in plant-frugivore interactions.
abstract: Species' functional roles in key ecosystem processes such as predation, pollination or seed dispersal are determined by the resource use of consumer species. An interaction between resource and consumer species usually requires trait matching (e.g. a congruence in the morphologies of interaction partners). Species' morphology should therefore determine species' functional roles in ecological processes mediated by mutualistic or antagonistic interactions. We tested this assumption for Neotropical plant-bird mutualisms. We used a new analytical framework that assesses a species's functional role based on the analysis of the traits of its interaction partners in a multidimensional trait space. We employed this framework to test (i) whether there is correspondence between the morphology of bird species and their functional roles and (ii) whether morphologically specialized birds fulfil specialized functional roles. We found that morphological differences between bird species reflected their functional differences: (i) bird species with different morphologies foraged on distinct sets of plant species and (ii) morphologically distinct bird species fulfilled specialized functional roles. These findings encourage further assessments of species' functional roles through the analysis of their interaction partners, and the proposed analytical framework facilitates a wide range of novel analyses for network and community ecology.
authors.affiliation: Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F), Senckenberganlage 25, 60325 Frankfurt (Main), Germany School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand matthias.dehling@canterbury.ac.nz.
authors.forename: D Matthias
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Dehling
authors.affiliation: Integrative Ecology Group, Estación Biológica de Doñana (CSIC-EBD), Avda. Americo Vespucio s/n, Isla de La Cartuja, E41092 Sevilla, Spain.
authors.forename: Pedro
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2142-9116
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jordano
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Biology, University of Freiburg, Department of Evolutionary Biology and Animal Ecology,Hauptstraße 1, 79104 Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: H Martin
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Schaefer
authors.affiliation: Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F), Senckenberganlage 25, 60325 Frankfurt (Main), Germany Department of Biological Sciences, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Max-von-Laue-Str. 9, 60438 Frankfurt (Main), Germany.
authors.forename: Katrin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Böhning-Gaese
authors.affiliation: Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F), Senckenberganlage 25, 60325 Frankfurt (Main), Germany.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schleuning
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001717:Birds / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology*; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D005638:Fruit; D010944:Plants / Q000145:classification*; D013045:Species Specificity
keywords: ecological networks; fleshy-fruited plants; frugivorous birds; functional diversity; mutualistic interactions; traits
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