Plant survival and keystone pollinator species in stochastic coextinction models: role of intrinsic dependence on animal-pollination.

ABSTRACT: Coextinction models are useful to understand community robustness to species loss and resilience to disturbances. We simulated pollinator extinctions in pollination networks by using a hybrid model that combined a recently developed stochastic coextinction model (SCM) for plant extinctions and a topological model (TCM) for animal extinctions. Our model accounted for variation in interaction strengths and included empirical estimates of plant dependence on pollinators to set seeds. The stochastic nature of such model allowed us determining plant survival to single (and multiple) extinction events, and identifying which pollinators (keystone species) were more likely to trigger secondary extinctions. Consistently across three different pollinator removal sequences, plant robustness was lower

SUBMITTER: Traveset A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5537349 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature