Brown Eleanor D, Hopkins M J G
NYZS-The Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, NY, USA.
Biology Department, University of Papua New Guinea, University PO, Papua New Guinea.
Oecologia. 1995 Jul;103(1):89-100. doi: 10.1007/BF00328429.
Interactions between flowering trees in a representative sample of vegetation, and the birds that fed at their flowers, were studied for 2 years in lowland tropical hill forest in New Guinea. All 2,200 trees in a 3-ha plot were tagged, identified, mapped, and monitored monthly. Approximately 60% of all individual trees flowered during the study; all species that these flowering individuals belonged to were evaluated for bird visitation. Approximately 13% of the 164 resident species of New Guinea avifauna at the study site, especially honeyeaters and parrots, visited flowers. In the forest inventory plot, approximately 15-22% of all 86 tree species that flowered during the study were visited by birds; most of these tree species were canopy species. Results showed that there was no statistically significant correlation between bird species grouped by bill morphology and flower species grouped as morphotypes and ranked by nectar accessibility, although strong but unexpected bird/plant associations were evident. These associations may be related to variables such as body mass or perch size. These results are discussed in comparison with results from the Neotropics and Australia, and in terms of morphological convergence and pollinator specificity in pollination systems.
在新几内亚低地热带山林中，对一片具有代表性的植被样本中的开花树木与以其花朵为食的鸟类之间的相互作用进行了为期两年的研究。对一块3公顷土地上的所有2200棵树木进行了标记、识别、绘图，并每月进行监测。在研究期间，所有个体树木中约60%开花；对这些开花个体所属的所有物种进行了鸟类访花情况评估。研究地点新几内亚鸟类区系的164种留鸟中，约13%，尤其是吸蜜鸟和鹦鹉，会访花。在森林清查地块中，研究期间开花的86种树木中约15 - 22%被鸟类访花；这些树种大多是树冠层树种。结果表明，按喙形态分组的鸟类物种与按形态类型分组并按花蜜可及性排序的花的物种之间，没有统计学上的显著相关性，尽管明显存在强烈但出人意料的鸟类/植物关联。这些关联可能与体重或栖息处大小等变量有关。将这些结果与新热带地区和澳大利亚的结果进行了比较，并从授粉系统中的形态趋同和传粉者特异性方面进行了讨论。
