Corridors restore animal-mediated pollination in fragmented tropical forest landscapes. Kormann, U., Scherber, C., Tscharntke, T., Klein, N., Larbig, M., Valente, J. J., Hadley, A. S., & Betts, M. G. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 283(1823):20152347, 2016.
doi  abstract   bibtex   
Tropical biodiversity and associated ecosystem functions have become heavily eroded through habitat loss. Animal-mediated pollination is required in more than 94% of higher tropical plant species and 75% of the world's leading food crops, but it remains unclear if corridors avert deforestation-driven pollination breakdown in fragmented tropical landscapes. Here, we used manipulative resource experiments and field observations to show that corridors functionally connect neotropical forest fragments for forest-associated hummingbirds and increase pollen transfer. Further, corridors boosted forest-associated pollinator availability in fragments by 14.3 times compared with unconnected equivalents, increasing overall pollination success. Plants in patches without corridors showed pollination rates equal to bagged control flowers, indicating pollination failure in isolated fragments. This indicates, for the first time, that corridors benefit tropical forest ecosystems beyond boosting local species richness, by functionally connecting mutualistic network partners. We conclude that small-scale adjustments to landscape configuration safeguard native pollinators and associated pollination services in tropical forest landscapes.
@article{Kormann2016Corridors,
 abstract = {Tropical biodiversity and associated ecosystem functions have become heavily eroded through habitat loss. Animal-mediated pollination is required in more than 94{\%} of higher tropical plant species and 75{\%} of the world's leading food crops, but it remains unclear if corridors avert deforestation-driven pollination breakdown in fragmented tropical landscapes. Here, we used manipulative resource experiments and field observations to show that corridors functionally connect neotropical forest fragments for forest-associated hummingbirds and increase pollen transfer. Further, corridors boosted forest-associated pollinator availability in fragments by 14.3 times compared with unconnected equivalents, increasing overall pollination success. Plants in patches without corridors showed pollination rates equal to bagged control flowers, indicating pollination failure in isolated fragments. This indicates, for the first time, that corridors benefit tropical forest ecosystems beyond boosting local species richness, by functionally connecting mutualistic network partners. We conclude that small-scale adjustments to landscape configuration safeguard native pollinators and associated pollination services in tropical forest landscapes.},
 author = {Kormann, Urs and Scherber, Christoph and Tscharntke, Teja and Klein, Nadja and Larbig, Manuel and Valente, Jonathon J. and Hadley, Adam S. and Betts, Matthew G.},
 year = {2016},
 title = {Corridors restore animal-mediated pollination in fragmented tropical forest landscapes},
 keywords = {ecol;phd},
 pages = {20152347},
 volume = {283},
 number = {1823},
 issn = {1471-2954},
 journal = {Proceedings of the Royal Society B},
 doi = {10.1098/rspb.2015.2347},
 file = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.2347},
 file = {http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26817765},
 file = {https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4795022},
 howpublished = {refereed}
}

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