Consequences of plant invasions on compartmentalization and species' roles in plant-pollinator networks.

ABSTRACT: Compartmentalization-the organization of ecological interaction networks into subsets of species that do not interact with other subsets (true compartments) or interact more frequently among themselves than with other species (modules)-has been identified as a key property for the functioning, stability and evolution of ecological communities. Invasions by entomophilous invasive plants may profoundly alter the way interaction networks are compartmentalized. We analysed a comprehensive dataset of 40 paired plant-pollinator networks (invaded versus uninvaded) to test this hypothesis. We show that invasive plants have higher generalization levels with respect to their pollinators than natives. The consequences for network topology are that-rather than displacing native species from the networ

SUBMITTER: Albrecht M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4083793 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature