Interaction rewiring and the rapid turnover of plant-pollinator networks.
Whether species interactions are static or change over time has wide-reaching ecological and evolutionary consequences. However, species interaction networks are typically constructed from temporally aggregated interaction data, thereby implicitly assuming that interactions are fixed. This approach has advanced our understanding of communities, but it obscures the timescale at which interactions form (or dissolve) and the drivers and consequences of such dynamics. We address this knowledge gap by quantifying the within-season turnover of plant-pollinator interactions from weekly censuses across 3 years in a subalpine ecosystem. Week-to-week turnover of interactions (1) was high, (2) followed a consistent seasonal progression in all years of study and (3) was dominated by interaction rewiring (the reassembly of interactions among species). Simulation models revealed that species' phenologies and relative abundances constrained both total interaction turnover and rewiring. Our findings reveal the diversity of species interactions that may be missed when the temporal dynamics of networks are ignored.
The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Crested Butte, CO, 81224, USA.|Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA.|Center for Macroecology, Evolution & Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen DK-2100, Copenhagen, Denmark.|The Chicago Botanic Garden, Glencoe, IL, 60622, USA.
Paul J
PJ
CaraDonna
The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Crested Butte, CO, 81224, USA.|Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA.|Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zürich, 8092, Zürich, Switzerland.
William K
WK
Petry
The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Crested Butte, CO, 81224, USA.|Graduate Group in Ecology, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, 95616, USA.
Ross M
RM
Brennan
The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Crested Butte, CO, 81224, USA.|Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA.
James L
JL
Cunningham
Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA.
Judith L
JL
Bronstein
The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Crested Butte, CO, 81224, USA.
Nickolas M
NM
Waser
The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Crested Butte, CO, 81224, USA.|Center for Macroecology, Evolution & Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen DK-2100, Copenhagen, Denmark.|Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, 05405, USA.
Nathan J
NJ
Sanders
D000818:Animals; D001717:Birds / Q000502:physiology*; D003120:Colorado; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D007313:Insecta / Q000502:physiology*; D019684:Magnoliopsida / Q000502:physiology*; D054817:Pollination; D012621:Seasons; D013045:Species Specificity
Adaptive foraging; beta-diversity; community composition; food webs; interaction turnover; mutualism; networks; null models; optimal foraging theory; phenology