Vol. 64, 2025
Morphological Traits and
Specialization of Neotropical Flower-hummingbird Networks
Kelly
Christie dos Santos Costa1 , Érica Vanessa Durães de
Freitas1 ,
and Walter Santos de Araújo2,*
doi:-
1Programa
de Pós-Graduação em Biodiversidade Animal, Universidade Federal de
Goiás, Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil. *Correspondence:E-mail:
kellychristiebiocon@gmail.com (Costa)
E-mail: vanessaduraesfreitas@gmail.com (de Freitas)
2Departamento de Biologia Geral, Centro de Ciências
Biológicas e da Saúde, Universidade Estadual de Montes Claros, Montes
Claros, Minas Gerais, Brazil. E-mail: walterbioaraujo@gmail.com (Walter
Santos de Araújo)
(Received 30 May 2024 /
Accepted 12 January 2025 / Published -- 2025)
Communicated by Chih-Ming Hung
Biological specialization plays a
central role in species coexistence. While many studies focus on
hummingbird pollination, research on the effects of morphological
traits of both hummingbirds and plants on the specialization of
interaction networks remains scarce. In this study, we aim to address
the following questions: i) does the dominance of ornithophilous plant
species increase the specialization of hummingbird-plant interaction
networks?; ii) do ornithophilous plants exhibit a greater diversity of
interactions with hummingbirds compared to non-ornithophilous plants?;
iii) do the beak size and body weight of hummingbirds influence the
diversity of their interactions? Research was conducted on
hummingbird-plant interactions in the Neotropical region. We
investigated hummingbird-plant interactions in the Neotropical region
by compiling 24 networks from the literature, comprising 1,182
interactions between 34 hummingbird species and 326 plant species. We
found no effect of ornithophilous plant dominance on the structure
(connectance and modularity) of the networks. However, species-level
interactions were influenced by morphological attributes of both plants
and hummingbirds. Interaction similarity among plant species was
greater for ornithophilous plants than for non- ornithophilous plants.
Additionally, beak size positively influenced the degree and
specialization of hummingbird interactions. Our findings demonstrate
that the morphological characteristics of hummingbird and plant species
directly influence the diversity of interactions in Neotropical
hummingbird-plant networks and species specialization.
Key words: Morphological correspondence,
Ornithophily, Plant-animal interactions, Specialization, Trochilidae
Citation: dos Santos Costa KC, de Freitas
ÉVD , de Araújo WS. 2025. Morphological traits and specialization of
neotropical flower-hummingbird networks. Zool Stud 64:02.

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