A hurricane alters pollinator relationships and natural selection on an introduced island plant

Novel relationships between the floral morphology of introduced plants and the trophic morphology of native pollinators have been hypothesized to cause strong natural selection on both parties, but evidence for such selection is rare. We capitalized on a natural disturbance to examine selection on an introduced plant, Heliconia wagneriana, on the island of Dominica, before and after Hurricane Maria. Prior to the hurricane, female Anthracothorax jugularis hummingbirds, which have longer bills than males, were the main visitor to H. wagneriana, and directional selection on corolla length was insignificant. After the hurricane, shorter-billed male A. jugularis were the main visitor to H. wagneriana. The absence of trait-matching between a short-billed pollinator and a long-flowered plant resulted in directional selection for shorter flowers because males preferentially visited plants with shorter flowers. The amount of nectar removed by male A. jugularis was negatively associated with flow...