Processes entangling interactions in communities: forbidden links are more important than abundance in a hummingbird-plant network.

摘要: Understanding the relative importance of multiple processes on structuring species interactions within communities is one major challenges in ecology. Here, we evaluated abundance and forbidden links a hummingbird–plant interaction network from Atlantic rainforest Brazil. Our results show that models incorporating phenological overlapping morphological matches were more accurate predicting observed than considering abundance. This means links, by imposing constraints interactions, play greater role ecological network. We also using frequency as proxy for metrics to describe detailed structure might lead biased conclusions regarding mechanisms generating structure. Together, our findings suggest can be less important driver previously thought.