Molecular food webs of bat-plant interactions during an extreme El Nino event

Interaction network structure reflects the ecological mechanisms acting within biological communities, which are affected by environmental conditions. In tropical forests, higher precipitation usually increases fruit production, which may lead frugivores to increase specialization, resulting in more modular and less nested animal-plant networks. In these ecosystems, El Niño is a major driver of precipitation, however, we still lack knowledge of how species interactions change under this influence. To understand bat-plant network structure during an extreme ENSO event, we determined the links between frugivorous bat species and the plants they consume by DNA barcoding seeds and pulp in bat faeces. These interactions were recorded in the dry forest and rainforest of Costa Rica, during the dry and the wet seasons of an extreme El Niño year. From these we constructed seasonal and whole-year bat-plant networks and analyzed their structures and dissimilarities. In general, networks had low ne...

生物交互网络结构能够反映生物群落内部的生态作用机制，此类机制受环境条件的调控。在热带森林中，较高的降水量通常会提升果实产量，进而促使食果动物提高特化程度，最终形成模块化程度更高、嵌套性更低的动植物交互网络。在这类生态系统中，厄尔尼诺（El Niño）是调控降水的关键驱动因子，但目前我们仍缺乏对物种交互在此类影响下变化规律的认知。为探究极端厄尔尼诺-南方涛动（ENSO）事件期间的蝙蝠-植物网络结构，我们通过对蝙蝠粪便中的种子与果肉进行DNA条形码（DNA barcoding）分析，明确了食果蝙蝠物种与其取食植物之间的关联。本研究在极端厄尔尼诺年份的旱季与湿季，于哥斯达黎加的干旱林与雨林中记录了上述物种交互关系。基于上述数据，我们构建了季节尺度与全年尺度的蝙蝠-植物网络，并对其结构与网络间的相异程度进行了分析。总体而言，各网络均呈现较低的……