Resistance and resilience of pollination networks to simulated invasions depend on adaptive foraging, network structure and the invaders' traits

VALDOVINOS FS; MOISSET DE ESPANÉS P; RAMOS-JILIBERTO R; VÁZQUEZ DP; MARTINEZ ND

Sacramento

Congreso; Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America; 2014

Ecological Society of America

The invasion of alien species into native ecosystems constitutes one of the major anthropogenic threats to the function and integrity of pollination systems.  However, ecologists lack a clear understanding of factors driving invasion success and subsequent effects on the invaded ecosystems.  Here, we use an integrative model of adaptive and nonlinear population dynamics to search for characteristics of alien species and network structures of native communities that drive invasion success and effects on native ecosystems.  We simulated the introduction of plant and animal species with different traits into 1,200 networks with different levels of richness (15-238 species), connectance (0.04-0.34) and nestedness (NODFst 0.036-4.8). We then determined which among 21 structural properties of the networks best explained our results. Results/ConclusionsOverall, larger networks with more links per animal better resisted invasions and adaptive foraging helped native pollinators resist the impacts of animal invasions.  However, invaders with increased visitation efficiency more strongly decreased the abundance of native pollinators. Additionally, alien plant species with high floral rewards were very successful invaders and more productive pollen producers more strongly decreased native plants´ pollination events and abundances.  Our findings demonstrate how the traits of invaders, the network structure of native communities, and the adaptive behavior of native pollinators may drive the resistance, resilience, and sensitivity of pollination systems to invasions.