Arteaga-Chávez William A, Graham Catherine H, Guevara Esteban A, Tinoco Boris A
Programa de Recursos Naturales Renovables, Universidad del Azuay, Cuenca, Ecuador.
Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, Birmensdorf, Switzerland.
PLoS One. 2025 May 12;20(5):e0323577. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0323577. eCollection 2025.
Niche partitioning of pollinators promotes the maintenance of high plant diversity in tropical environments. The role of animal pollinators in this partitioning has been evaluated predominantly at individual and species levels. However, pollinators can carry pollen on different parts of their bodies, potentially resulting in an increase in plant niche partitioning. Nonetheless, studies of pollen loads on different body parts of pollinators and how those patterns influence in plant niche partitioning remain scarce. Here, we 1) measure pollinator niche partitioning of plants considering hummingbird body parts, and 2) explore the contribution of hummingbird traits to niche partitioning of plants. We used mist nets to capture hummingbirds in the southern Andes of Ecuador, and took pollen samples from their bill, base of the bill, forehead, throat and chest-belly using fuchsin-gel. We evaluated plant niche partitioning at the species level based on all pollen found on a given species and at the body-part level by considering pollen loads on different hummingbird body parts, using the specialization metric (d') and beta diversity analysis. Niche partitioning of plants was higher when the different body parts of hummingbirds were considered than specialization at the species level. The contribution to plant niche partitioning by hummingbird species was positively related to tarsus length, potentially because this trait is associated to hummingbird perching behavior and longer contact times with flowers. In sum, we show that plants increase niche partitioning as a result of pollen deposition on different body-parts, which may help explain coexistence in species-rich systems where many plant species co-flower and share pollinators.
传粉者的生态位分化促进了热带环境中植物多样性的维持。动物传粉者在这种分化中的作用主要是在个体和物种层面进行评估的。然而，传粉者可以在其身体的不同部位携带花粉，这可能会导致植物生态位分化增加。尽管如此，关于传粉者身体不同部位的花粉负载情况以及这些模式如何影响植物生态位分化的研究仍然很少。在这里，我们：1）考虑蜂鸟身体部位来测量植物的传粉者生态位分化；2）探究蜂鸟特征对植物生态位分化的贡献。我们使用雾网在厄瓜多尔安第斯山脉南部捕获蜂鸟，并使用品红凝胶从它们的喙、喙基部、额头、喉咙和胸腹采集花粉样本。我们基于在一个给定物种上发现的所有花粉在物种层面评估植物生态位分化，并通过考虑不同蜂鸟身体部位的花粉负载在身体部位层面进行评估，使用专业化度量（d'）和β多样性分析。当考虑蜂鸟的不同身体部位时，植物的生态位分化高于物种层面的专业化程度。蜂鸟物种对植物生态位分化的贡献与跗骨长度呈正相关，这可能是因为这个特征与蜂鸟的栖息行为以及与花朵更长的接触时间有关。总之，我们表明植物由于花粉沉积在不同身体部位而增加了生态位分化，这可能有助于解释在许多植物物种同时开花并共享传粉者的物种丰富系统中的共存现象。
