Ecology (2013) doi: 10.1890/13-0977.1

Habitat loss can have a negative effect on the number, abundance, and composition of species in plant-pollinator communities. Although we have a general understanding of the negative consequences of habitat loss for biodiversity, much less is known about the resulting effects on the pattern of interactions in mutualistic networks. Ecological networks formed by mutualistic interactions often exhibit a highly nested architecture with low modularity, especially in comparison with antagonistic networks. These patterns of interaction are thought to confer stability on mutualistic communities. With the growing threat of environmental change, it is important to expand our understanding of the factors that affect biodiversity and the stability of the communities that provide critical ecosystem functions and services. We studied the effects of habitat loss on plant-pollinator network architecture and found that regional habitat loss contributes directly to species loss and indirectly to the re-organization of interspecific interactions in a local community. Networks became more highly connected and more modular with habitat loss. Species richness and abundance were the primary drivers of variation in network architecture, though species composition affected modularity. Theory suggests that an increase in modularity with habitat loss will threaten community stability, which may contribute to an extinction debt in communities already affected by habitat loss.

Habitat loss alters the architecture of plant-pollinator interaction networks