Abordagens top-down e bottom-up no entendimento sobre o papel das interações planta-polinizador na montagem de comunidades

Abstract

Plant-pollinator interactions play a crucial role in the assembly and dynamics of biological communities, influencing plant reproduction, and consequently, maintenance of biodiversity in ecosystems. Communities are structured by deterministic processes (competition, facilitation, and environmental filtering) and neutral processes. First, we synthesized the literature to investigate which is the primary process driving community assembly, and secondly, we explored communities in high-altitude environments through manipulative experiments simulating structural patterns predefined in the literature, such as the ones expected under facilitation. These approaches revealed that, globally, the primary structuring process was competition. However, we found considerable variation among effect sizes among the considered variables, indicating the need for further studies. In the manipulative experiments, it was observed that morphological similarity is the main factor driving pollinator visitation, in which Sisyrinchium wettsteinii experienced an increase in reproductive success when associated with other similar plants through a process of interspecific facilitation. These results demonstrate the complexity of plant-pollinator interactions, indicating how competition can be a predominant process for communities on a global scale, regardless of climatic conditions or the biome where the community is located. Additionally, it highlights the importance of morphological similarity for pollination in highaltitude ecosystems, expanding our understanding of community ecology in these environments.