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      Structure and characteristics of the plant-frugivore bird network from the Guilin Botanical Garden

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          Abstract

          The interaction between plants and frugivores is crucial to ecosystem function and community diversity. However, little is known about the interaction between plants and frugivorous bird species in urban green spaces. We observed interactions between plants and frugivorous birds in the Guilin Botanical Garden for one year and determined the structure and characteristics of the interaction network. We also analyzed the impact of species traits on their network roles. Interactions between 14 frugivorous birds and 13 fruit plant species were recorded in the study area. Autumn interactions comprised 38.79% of the overall network, and winter interactions comprised 33.15%. The modularity ( Q, z-score) of the network was higher in autumn; the weighted nestedness ( wNODF, z-score) and interaction evenness ( E 2 , z-score) of the network were higher in winter; the connectance ( C, z-score) and interaction diversity ( z-score) of the network were higher in spring; and the specialization ( H 2, z-score) of the network was higher in summer. The observed network showed lower C, lower interaction H 2 , lower E 2 , lower wNODF, higher H 2 and higher Q when compared to the random networks. The bird species most important to network stability were Hemixos castanonotus, Parus venustulus, and Pycnonotus sinensis. The most important plant species were Alocasia macrorrhiza, Cinnamomum camphora, and Machilus nanmu. Of all the bird and plant traits included in this study, only plant color had a significant impact on species strength, with black fruit having a higher species strength. Our results suggest that interaction networks in urban green spaces can be temporally complex and variable and that a network approach can be an important monitoring tool for detecting the status of crucial ecosystem functions.

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          The nested assembly of plant-animal mutualistic networks.

          Most studies of plant-animal mutualisms involve a small number of species. There is almost no information on the structural organization of species-rich mutualistic networks despite its potential importance for the maintenance of diversity. Here we analyze 52 mutualistic networks and show that they are highly nested; that is, the more specialist species interact only with proper subsets of those species interacting with the more generalists. This assembly pattern generates highly asymmetrical interactions and organizes the community cohesively around a central core of interactions. Thus, mutualistic networks are neither randomly assembled nor organized in compartments arising from tight, parallel specialization. Furthermore, nestedness increases with the complexity (number of interactions) of the network: for a given number of species, communities with more interactions are significantly more nested. Our results indicate a nonrandom pattern of community organization that may be relevant for our understanding of the organization and persistence of biodiversity.
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            Indices, Graphs and Null Models: Analyzing Bipartite Ecological Networks

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              Strong contributors to network persistence are the most vulnerable to extinction.

              The architecture of mutualistic networks facilitates coexistence of individual participants by minimizing competition relative to facilitation. However, it is not known whether this benefit is received by each participant node in proportion to its overall contribution to network persistence. This issue is critical to understanding the trade-offs faced by individual nodes in a network. We address this question by applying a suite of structural and dynamic methods to an ensemble of flowering plant/insect pollinator networks. Here we report two main results. First, nodes contribute heterogeneously to the overall nested architecture of the network. From simulations, we confirm that the removal of a strong contributor tends to decrease overall network persistence more than the removal of a weak contributor. Second, strong contributors to collective persistence do not gain individual survival benefits but are in fact the nodes most vulnerable to extinction. We explore the generality of these results to other cooperative networks by analysing a 15-year time series of the interactions between designer and contractor firms in the New York City garment industry. As with the ecological networks, a firm's survival probability decreases as its individual nestedness contribution increases. Our results, therefore, introduce a new paradox into the study of the persistence of cooperative networks, and potentially address questions about the impact of invasive species in ecological systems and new competitors in economic systems.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                PeerJ
                PeerJ
                peerj
                PeerJ
                PeerJ Inc. (San Diego, USA )
                2167-8359
                16 March 2023
                2023
                : 11
                : e15028
                Affiliations
                [1 ]College of Chemistry and Bioengineering, Guangxi Normal University for Nationalities , Chongzuo, Guangxi, China
                [2 ]Key Laboratory of Ecology of Rare and Endangered Species and Environmental Protection, Ministry of Education; Guangxi Key Laboratory of Rare and Endangered Animal Ecology, Guangxi Normal University , Guilin, Guangxi, China
                [3 ]College of Mathematics, Physics and Electronic Information Engineering, Guangxi Normal University for Nationalities , Chongzuo, Guangxi, China
                Article
                15028
                10.7717/peerj.15028
                10024898
                36945357
                0015aa84-009c-4cca-b33f-7c9f0ea8e36e
                ©2023 Wang et al.

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.

                History
                : 1 September 2022
                : 17 February 2023
                Funding
                Funded by: National Natural Science Foundation of China
                Award ID: 32170492
                Award ID: 32270504
                Funded by: Guangxi Natural Science Foundation
                Award ID: 2019GXNSFD-A245021
                Funded by: Scientific Research Foundation of Guangxi Normal University for Nationalities
                Award ID: 2021BS002
                Funded by: Key Laboratory of Ecology of Rare and Endangered Species and Environmental Protection (Guangxi Normal University), Ministry of Education, China
                Funded by: The fourth batch of characteristic discipline construction projects in Ethnic Colleges and universities approved by the Department of Education of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (Ethnic Ecology)
                Funded by: The basic ability enhancement program for Young and Middle-Aged Teachers of Guangxi
                Award ID: 2020KY20017
                The National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 32170492; 32270504), the Guangxi Natural Science Foundation (No. 2019GXNSFD-A245021), the Scientific Research Foundation of Guangxi Normal University for Nationalities (No. 2021BS002), the fourth batch of characteristic discipline construction projects in Ethnic Colleges and universities approved by the Department of Education of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (Ethnic Ecology). Funding was also provided by the Key Laboratory of Ecology of Rare and Endangered Species and Environmental Protection (Guangxi Normal University), Ministry of Education, China, and the basic ability enhancement program for Young and Middle-Aged Teachers Of Guangxi (No. 2020KY20017). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
                Categories
                Biodiversity
                Ecology
                Evolutionary Studies
                Plant Science
                Zoology

                interaction network,urban ecosystem,functional diversity,fleshy fruit plant,frugivorous birds

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