Mutualism Disruption Threatens Global Plant Biodiversity: A Systematic Review.

ABSTRACT:

Background

As global environmental change accelerates, biodiversity losses can disrupt interspecific interactions. Extinctions of mutualist partners can create "widow" species, which may face reduced ecological fitness. Hypothetically, such mutualism disruptions could have cascading effects on biodiversity by causing additional species coextinctions. However, the scope of this problem - the magnitude of biodiversity that may lose mutualist partners and the consequences of these losses - remains unknown.

Methodology/principal findings

We conducted a systematic review and synthesis of data from a broad range of sources to estimate the threat posed by vertebrate extinctions to the global biodiversity of vertebrate-dispersed and -pollinated plants. Though enormous research gaps

SUBMITTER: Aslan CE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3686776 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature