Resilience in Plant-Herbivore Networks during Secondary Succession

Abstract

Extensive land-use change in the tropics has produced a mosaic of successional forests within an agricultural and cattle-pasture matrix. Post-disturbance biodiversity assessments have found that regeneration speed depends upon propagule availability and the intensity and duration of disturbance. However, reestablishment of species interactions is still poorly understood and this limits our understanding of the anthropogenic impacts upon ecosystem resilience. This is the first investigation that evaluates plant-herbivore interaction networks during secondary succession. In particular we investigated succession in a Mexican tropical dry forest using data of caterpillar associations with plants during 2007–2010. Plant-herbivore networks showed high resilience. We found no differences in most network descriptors between secondary and mature forest and only recently abandoned fields were found to be different. No significant nestedness or modularity network structure was found. Plant-herbivore network properties appear to quickly reestablish after perturbation, despite differences in species richness and composition. This study provides some valuable guidelines for the implement of restoration efforts that can enhance ecological processes such as the interaction between plants and their herbivores.

Influence of plant resistance traits in selectiveness and species strength in a tropical plant‐herbivore network

“…Th us, we lack a comprehensive understanding of the diversity and evolution of biotic interactions ( Th ompson, 2005 ). However, recent complex network analyses have proven effective for exploring the patterns of mega-diverse interactions that commonly occur in nature ( Bascompte, 2009 ) and have been useful for testing hypotheses regarding the processes infl uencing the structure of mutualistic Olesen et al, 2007 ;Vázquez et al, 2009 ) and antagonistic networks ( Vacher et al, 2008 ;Rezende et al, 2009 ;Cagnolo et al, 2011 ;Villa-Galaviz et al, 2012 ;López-Carretero et al, 2014 ).…”

Preferencia de sustrato de los lacertilios diurnos del valle de Zapotitlán Salinas, Puebla

“…2B), como en el caso de S. gadoviae, que está asociada a paredes de arenisca. Los hábitos de esta lagartija la ubican en lugares rocosos o en paredes de tierra formadas por la erosión (Canseco-Márquez y Gutiérrez-Mayén, 2006;Mata-Silva, 2003;Woolrich-Piña et al, 2005). S. gadoviae es una especie trepadora, aunque durante el estudio se observó a varios individuos en las partes bajas, asoleándose o en busca de alimento ( fig.…”

“…La conectividad de la red obtenida fue baja, lo cual indica una estabilidad alta dentro de la red y evita que se produzcan efectos negativos o colapso entre los nichos por posible extinción de las especies (Cagnolo y Valladares, 2011;Dunne et al, 2002;Villa-Galaviz et al, 2012). Se ha mencionado que las redes que presentan baja conectividad se producen cuando existe competencia intensa entre las especies por los recursos (Villa-Galaviz et al, 2012).…”

“…Estos índices se calcularon utilizando el paquete BIPARTITE 2.08 (Dorman et al, 2008;Morris et al, 2014;Pires et al, 2014;Villa-Galaviz et al, 2012).…”

“…En biología, el uso de los métodos de análisis de redes ha estado enfocado principalmente a estudios entre especies que presentan interacciones de mutualismo (Bascompte et al, 2003;Schlueuning et al, 2014;Tohu et al, 2015), depredación (Dunne et al, 2002;Villa-Galaviz et al, 2012) y parasitoidismo (Martínez-Falcón et al, 2010). Además, las redes se han utilizado para evaluar el efecto de la fragmentación del hábitat (Cagnolo y Valladares, 2011).…”