Abstract:
1. While the relationship between facilitation and competition has been explored extensively in recent years, there is also a natural link between facilitation and mutualism, as both are interspecific interactions that confer benefits. Yet, the relationship between these two interactions has been minimally explored. 2. Here, I explore parallels and differences between mutualism and facilitation. Five focal areas organize current research on mutualism evolution: trait evolution; the continuum from specialization to generalization; the evolutionary origins and maintenance of the interaction; co-evolution of partners; and the prevalence and implications of cheating. These foci are also helpful for investigating how facilitation evolves, a much less explored issue. 3. Testable hypotheses regarding the evolution of facilitation include the following: selection should be stronger on traits of facilitated species than on traits of facilitators; facilitative interactions with mutualistic (++) and commensal (+0) outcomes should exhibit greater evolutionary stability than those with antagonistic (+-) outcomes; co-evolution should be possible in mutualistic and antagonistic facilitation only; when co-evolution occurs, it should produce a geographic mosaic of interaction outcomes; and antagonistic facilitation could lead to selection on facilitators to either escape or to tolerate the neighbours that benefit from them. 4.Synthesis. Three gaps in our knowledge currently impede progress on evolutionary questions surrounding facilitation. First, reciprocal effects are rarely investigated; facilitation might evolve like mutualism, commensalism or antagonism, depending on effects on the facilitator species. Secondly, the genetics of relevant traits are not yet well explored; the traits themselves are better known for facilitator species than for the facilitated, which are more likely to evolve in the context of the interaction. Finally, the fitness costs and benefits associated with facilitation have rarely been measured. Filling these gaps should permit rapid progress in understanding how facilitation arises, persists and evolves. © 2009 British Ecological Society.
Abstract:
1. Hawkmoths (Sphingidae) are important plant associates at two lifehistory stages: larvae are herbivorous, whereas adults are nectar feeders and often pollinators. The diversity and identities of plants used for nectar is poorly known, however. 2. This study takes a community-level approach to hawkmoth nectar plant usage in a semi-arid grassland habitat in southern Arizona, U.S.A. 3. Pollen carried on the proboscis was identified from over 700 individuals of 14 hawkmoth species attracted to lights over a 2-year period. 4. Two plant species dominated pollen loads, suggesting that hawkmoths use these species extensively as nectar sources: Datura wrightii (Solanaceae), a classic hawkmothpollinated plant, and Agave palmeri (Agavaceae), which is known to be used extensively by bats. Field surveys indicate that both species are relatively rare in the flowering community. Little or no pollen was present on the moths from the most common plant species in flower during the study. 5. The dominance of Agave in pollen loads suggests that this typically bat-pollinated species may be subsidising pollinator populations of the hawkmoth-pollinated flora. 6. Three groups of hawkmoths within this community are identified based on larval diets (reported in the literature) and adult diets (documented here): those that, at a given site, heavily exploit the same plant species at both life-history stages (Manduca sexta and M. quinquemaculata); those that have broad local associations at both life-history stages (Hyles lineata); and those that exhibit narrow but non-overlapping local associations at the two life-history stages (all other hawkmoths at this site). © 2008 The Royal Entomological Society.
Abstract:
Pollination of fig trees depends on mutualist wasps that reproduce within their flowers. Until recently, it was assumed that there was a short window of time during which a fig crop could be pollinated. Hence, pollination of figs was thought to depend on extreme efficiency of the wasps in locating receptive trees. In that context, extensive data on the Costa Rican fig tree Ficus pertusa L. have been very difficult to understand. In F. pertusa, figs of different crops attract wasps at different stages of their development. The crops that attract wasps the earliest in their development are the most heavily visited ones, but mature the fewest pollinator offspring and seeds on a per-fig basis. Using simulation models of pollinator population dynamics and field data, we show that (i) attractiveness of a crop is prolonged, (ii) wasps prefer large figs when given a choice, and (iii) the observed pattern of preferential early visitation of crops can be explained by temporal variations in pollinator abundance. This emphasizes the importance of population-level mechanisms to explain the fig/fig wasp mutualism.
Abstract:
Predators inflict high mortality on the 4 species of wasps associated with the fig Ficus pertusa in Monteverde, Costa Rica. One of these wasps is the obligated pollinator of the fig. The natural histories of several predators are described: an ant that feeds on wasps arriving to oviposit, moth and weevil larvae that destroy wasps as they develop within the fruits, a staphylinid beetle that feeds on mature wasps before they leave the fruits, and a group of birds that gleans wasps as they leave. The synchrony of arrival and departure of pollinators from the fig trees probably make them the species least vulnerable to predation. -from Author
