Data from: Species abundance, not diet breadth, drives the persistence of the most linked pollinators as plant-pollinator networks disassemble

Theoretical and simulation studies predict that the order of species loss
from mutualist networks, with respect to how linked species are to other
species within the network, will determine the rate at which networks
collapse. However, the empirical order of species loss with respect to
linkage has rarely been investigated. Furthermore, a species' linkage
is a composite of its diet breadth and its abundance, yet the relative
importance of these two factors in determining species loss order is
poorly known. Here we explore the order of pollinator species loss in two
contrasting study systems, both undergoing land-use intensification, using
a total of >20,000 pollinator specimens. We found that a pollinator
species' linkage, as measured independently within plant-pollinator
networks, positively predicted its persistence at human-disturbed sites in
three of four analyses. The strongest predictor of persistence in all
analyses was pollinator species' abundance. In contrast, diet breadth
poorly predicted persistence. Overall, our results suggest that community
disassembly order buffers plant-pollinator networks against environmental
change by retaining the highly linked species that make a disproportionate
contribution to network robustness. Furthermore, these highly linked
species likely persist because they are also the most common species, not
because they are dietary generalists.