The disruption of a keystone interaction erodes pollination and seed dispersal networks, Vitali et al., 2021 Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3547

Image credit: Ennio Nasi, CC BY 4.0

The Crux

Ecological communities are incredibly complex networks, made up of interactions between the species that reside in them. To properly understand how these interactions shape a community, researchers have to employ a variety of analytical methods and modelling approaches. This was something that I had to learn to appreciate in my work, because I always thought that studying ecology would involve a lot of time outdoors working with animals. While that does happen (and I spent months outside during my PhD), most of the ecological research I’m familiar with centers on math and statistics.

Using math and statistics to model ecological communities helps us to break down how various organisms are connected with one another. For example, keystone species are organisms that are connected to so many others within a given ecosystem such that any change to their populations will have consequences for the entire community. Understanding the processes that affect these keystone individuals (and all of the organisms linked to them) is vital to predicting how processes such as climate change and invasive species will affect natural communities in the future.

Today’s authors investigated how disruption of an important species interaction affected pollination and seed dispersal networks in Patagonia. A hummingbird species (Sephanoides sephaniodes) is the main pollinator for a mistletoe species (Tristerix corym-bosus), while the mistletoe provides the hummingbird with nectar in the winter. The colocolo opossum (Dromiciops gliroides) is a small marsupial that is vital for the mistletoe, as mistletoe seeds must pass through the opossum’s gut to trigger their germination. Additionally, the opossums defecate many seeds on branches in a “necklace” arrangement, which likely helps the mistletoe to parasitize their plant hosts. These three species are tightly connected to one another, and any reduction in abundance for one species may affect the other two, and even destroy the entire food web.

Read more