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Forest cover and landscape heterogeneity shape ant–plant co-occurrence networks in human-dominated tropical rainforests

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Abstract

Context

The effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on biodiversity involve a series of mechanisms and processes that cannot be studied in isolation, mainly because human-modified landscapes are spatially heterogeneous. Despite the recent evidence on how habitat quality and landscape structure may regulate species composition and community structure, there is no empirical information on how ant–plant co-occurrence networks respond to landscape changes.

Objectives

In this study, we used tools derived from landscape ecology and graph theory to model how habitat loss and forest fragmentation affect ant–plant co-occurrence networks at two different spatial levels (local and landscape) in a human-modified tropical rainforest in Mexico. Methods We sampled ant–plant co-occurrence networks in 16 landscapes and calculated species and co-occurrence diversity as well as the specialisation of the networks. For each landscape, we measured a series of biotic and abiotic variables at the local level and another set of variables at the landscape level.

Results

We found that the landscape context (i.e. forest cover and landscape heterogeneity) was a better predictor of plant diversity and diversity of ant–plant co-occurrences compared with local characteristics. Moreover, we also observed that network specialisation was positively related to the amount of forest cover in landscapes.

Conclusions

In short, our results highlight the importance of studying the diversity of species and co-occurrence networks within a landscape approach to predict the impact of habitat loss and fragmentation at different spatial levels and contexts.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Praxedis Sinaca and Karla Selene Andalco for their collaboration during the fieldwork of this study. We also would like to thank to the Tropical Biology Station “Los Tuxtlas” and the owners of the tropical forest fragments for allowing us to conduct the fieldwork of this study on their properties and for their support and hospitality. We gratefully acknowledge the staff of the Entomological Collection IEXA, especially Gibran Renoy Pérez Toledo, for their help in identifying the collected specimens. We sincerely thank Ek del Val, Eduardo Mendoza, Roger Guevara and Jorge Ernesto Valenzuela for their comments and suggestions to improve this manuscript. This study would not have been possible without the help of a graduate studies scholarship from CONACyT (No. 291025). MCR is funded by FAPESP (2013/50421-2) and receives a research grant from CNPq (312045/2013-1; 312292/2016-3).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Red de Ecoetología, Instituto de Ecología A.C., Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico

    Erick J. Corro, Diana A. Ahuatzin, Mario E. Favila & Wesley Dáttilo

  2. Red de Interacciones Multitróficas, Instituto de Ecología A.C., Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico

    Armando Aguirre Jaimes

  3. Department of Ecology, Spatial Ecology and Conservation Lab (LEEC), Bioscience Institute, UNESP-Universidade Estadual Paulista, Rio Claro, São Paulo, Brazil

    Milton Cezar Ribeiro

  4. Centro de Investigaciones Tropicales, Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico

    Juan C. López-Acosta

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  1. Erick J. Corro
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Correspondence to Wesley Dáttilo.

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Corro, E.J., Ahuatzin, D.A., Jaimes, A.A. et al. Forest cover and landscape heterogeneity shape ant–plant co-occurrence networks in human-dominated tropical rainforests. Landscape Ecol 34, 93–104 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-018-0747-4

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