Influence of plant-pollinator interactions on the assembly of plant and hummingbird communities

Understanding how ecological processes structure species assemblages is a central issue in community ecology. While the influence of plant–pollinator interactions on each other's evolution is well recognized, their role in the assembly of interdependent communities of plants and pollinators is still unclear.
Using data from seven communities of hummingbirds and plants that they pollinate from two tropical rain forest types (lowland and montane), we evaluated phylogenetic relationships and signal of functional traits, over space and time, to test predictions on the main processes (environmental filtering, facilitation or competition) that are driving these hummingbird–plant assemblages.
Our findings suggest that the main processes driving these assemblages varied between hummingbirds and plants and between habitats, and even among communities at the same habitat. The non-conserved floral trait and the phylogenetic patterns (even or random) give support to the hypothesis of facilitation...