Data from: Tropical forest fragmentation limits movements, but not occurrence of a generalist pollinator species

Habitat loss and fragmentation influence species distributions and
therefore ecological processes that depend upon them. Pollination may be
particularly susceptible to fragmentation, as it depends on frequent
pollinator movement. Unfortunately, most pollinators are too small to
track efficiently which has precluded testing the hypothesis that habitat
fragmentation reduces or eliminates pollen flow by disrupting pollinator
movement. We used radio-telemetry to examine space use of the green hermit
hummingbird (Phaethornis guy), an important 'hub' pollinator of
understory flowering plants across substantial portions of the neotropics
and the primary pollinator of a keystone plant which shows reduced
pollination success in fragmented landscapes. We found that green hermits
strongly avoided crossing large stretches of non-forested matrix and
preferred to move along stream corridors. Forest gaps as small as 50 m
diminished the odds of movement by 50%. Green hermits occurred almost
exclusively inside the forest, with the odds of occurrence being 8 times
higher at points with >95% canopy cover compared with points having
<5% canopy cover. Nevertheless, surprisingly. the species occurred
in fragmented landscapes with low amounts of forest (~30% within a 2 km
radius). Our results indicate that although green hermits are present even
in landscapes with low amounts of tropical forest, movement within these
landscapes ends up strongly constrained by forest gaps. Restricted
movement of pollinators may be an underappreciated mechanism for
widespread declines in pollination and plant fitness in fragmented
landscapes, even when in the presence of appropriate pollinators.