FIGURES LEGENDS:
Figure 1 . Effect of the mean precipitation rate on the (a) species richness, (b) connectance, (c) nestedness, and (d) modularity of mutualistic networks representing interactions between ants and plants bearing extrafloral nectaries. The species richness of networks decreased with the decrease in the mean precipitation rate in the habitat (mm), but no other predictor of the network structure varied along the gradient. Each point represents one network, and the size of each point indicates the species richness (S) of the respective network.
Figure 2 . Effect of the mean precipitation rate (m) on the connectance (C) and resource range (RR) of dominant (a and c, respectively), and subordinate ant species (b and d, respectively).\(C_{d}\) and \(C_{s}\) increased with the decrease in the habitat’ mean precipitation rate (mm), while \(RR_{d}\) and \(RR_{s}\) did not vary along the water gradient. Each point represents one network, and the size is the richness (S) of each network.
Figure 3. Relationship between the mean precipitation rate (mm) and the similarity in the patterns of dominant and subordinate ant species interaction with plant species with extrafloral nectaries (Jaccard index of similarity). Precipitation rate did not affect the overlap between dominant and subordinate ant species visiting the plants with EFNs. Each point represents one network, and the size is the richness S of each network.