CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The commensalistic interaction between vascular epiphytes and host trees is a type of biotic interactionthat has been recently analysed with a network approach. This approach is useful to describe thenetwork structure with metrics such as nestedness, specialization and interaction evenness, which canbe compared with other vascular epiphyte-host tree networks from different forests of the world.However, in several cases these comparisons showed different and inconsistent patterns between thesenetworks, and their possible ecological and evolutionary determinants have been scarcely studied. In thisstudy, the interactions between vascular epiphytes and host trees of a subtropical forest of sierra de SanJavier (Tucuman, Argentina) were analysed with a network approach. We calculated metrics to characterizethe network and we analysed factors such as the abundance of species, tree size, tree barktexture, and tree wood density in order to predict interaction frequencies and network structure. Theinteraction network analysed exhibited a nested structure, an even distribution of interactions, and lowspecialization, properties shared with other obligated vascular epiphyte-host tree networks with adifferent assemblage structure. Interaction frequencies were predicted by the abundance of species, treesize and tree bark texture. Species abundance and tree size also predicted nestedness. Abundanceindicated that abundant species interact more frequently; and tree size was an important predictor, sincelarger-diameter trees hosted more vascular epiphyte species than small-diameter trees. This is one of thefirst studies analyzing interactions between vascular epiphytes and host trees using a network approachin a subtropical forest, and taking the whole vascular epiphyte assemblage of the sampled communityinto account.

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