Plant connectivity underlies plant-pollinator-exploiter distributions in Ficus petiolaris and associated pollinating and non-pollinating fig wasps

Mutualism is ubiquitous in nature, and nursery pollination mutualisms provide a system well suited to quantifying the benefits and costs of symbiotic interactions. In nursery pollination mutualisms, pollinators reproduce within the inflorescence they pollinate, with benefits and costs being measured in the numbers of pollinator offspring and seeds produced. This type of mutualism is also typically exploited by seed-consuming non-pollinators that obtain resources from plants without providing pollination services. Theory predicts that the rate at which pollen-bearing “foundresses” visit a plant will strongly affect the plant's production of pollinator offspring, non-pollinator offspring, and seeds. Spatially aggregated plants are predicted to have high rates of foundress visitation, increasing pollinator and seed production, and decreasing non-pollinator production; very high foundress visitation may also decrease seed production indirectly through the production of pollinators. Working ...