Effects of precipitation extremes on nestedness and modularity of
tropical seed dispersal networks
Abstract
El Niño is a major driver of fluctuations in tropical precipitation and
fruiting production, with cascading effects on frugivores. As places get
wetter, mutualistic networks tend to become more modular and less
nested. In order to test the impact of severe floods and droughts caused
by the El Niño cycle of 2015-2016 on nestedness and modularity of
mutualistic networks, we determined the links between frugivorous bats
and the plants in their diets by DNA barcoding bat faeces and used null
models for our network comparisons. Despite the contrasting effects of
droughts and floods in the dry forest and rainforest, respectively, we
observed similar changes in network structure for both forests. We found
higher values of modularity, but lower of nestedness for most networks
comparisons. Over all we found higher nestedness in the dry forest than
the rainforest and minimal difference between wet and dry season in the
dry forest. A lower nestedness might reduce the number of species
supported by the habitat as well as increase species competition.
Although the increase in modularity might reduce the number of
coexisting species in the environment, higher network
compartmentalization leads to greater stability, slower spread of
disturbance and smaller chances of having trophic cascades. Therefore,
changes in network structure promoted by El Niño are likely to have dual
effects on networks with some effects leading to greater stability while
others to increasing competition.