Abstract
The interaction between plants and frugivores plays a critical role in
sustaining ecosystem function and community diversity, but little is
known about the structure of interaction networks between fruit plants
and frugivore birds in urban
green spaces. We observed the interactions between plants and birds
throughout the year in the Guilin Botanical Garden and assessed the
characteristics of the total plant-frugivore and seasonal networks. We
also analyzed the relationship between the network roles of species and
ecological traits to explore the structure and characteristics of the
plant-frugivore network. The interactions between a total of 14
frugivore birds and 13 fruit plant species were analyzed in the study
area, the autumn and winter interaction connections contributed 38.79%
and 33.15% to the total network, respectively. The specialization
(H2´ ), and interaction evenness
(E2 ) of the network were higher in spring and
summer than that in autumn and winter. However, connectance (C),
nestedness, and interaction diversity (H2 ) were
contrary to the specialization and interaction evenness of the network.
Compared to the networks (N=1000) generated by the null model, the
observed network exhibited lower connectance (C), interaction
diversity(H2 ), interaction evenness
(E2 ), and higher nestedness and specialization
(H2´ ). A correlation analysis combining
ecological traits and network roles showed that plants with black fruit
had higher species strength, whereas the other traits of plants and
birds were not significantly correlated with their network parameters.