RESUMEN
Tropical forests and coral reefs host a disproportionately large share of global biodiversity and provide ecosystem functions and services used by millions of people. Yet, ongoing climate change is leading to an increase in frequency and magnitude of extreme climatic events in the tropics, which, in combination with other local human disturbances, is leading to unprecedented negative ecological consequences for tropical forests and coral reefs. Here, we provide an overview of how and where climate extremes are affecting the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth and summarize how interactions between global, regional and local stressors are affecting tropical forest and coral reef systems through impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem resilience. We also discuss some key challenges and opportunities to promote mitigation and adaptation to a changing climate at local and global scales. This article is part of the theme issue 'Climate change and ecosystems: threats, opportunities and solutions'.
Asunto(s)
Biodiversidad , Cambio Climático , Conservación de los Recursos Naturales , Arrecifes de Coral , Bosques , Clima TropicalRESUMEN
Fire represents a frequent disturbance in many ecosystems, which can affect plant-pollinator assemblages and hence the services they provide. Furthermore, fire events could affect the architecture of plant-pollinator interaction networks, modifying the structure and function of communities. Some pollinators, such as wood-nesting bees, may be particularly affected by fire events due to damage to the nesting material and its long regeneration time. However, it remains unclear whether fire influences the structure of bee-plant interactions. Here, we used quantitative plant-wood-nesting bee interaction networks sampled across four different post-fire age categories (from freshly-burnt to unburnt sites) in an arid ecosystem to test whether the abundance of wood-nesting bees, the breadth of resource use and the plant-bee community structure change along a post-fire age gradient. We demonstrate that freshly-burnt sites present higher abundances of generalist than specialist wood-nesting bees and that this translates into lower network modularity than that of sites with greater post-fire ages. Bees do not seem to change their feeding behaviour across the post-fire age gradient despite changes in floral resource availability. Despite the effects of fire on plant-bee interaction network structure, these mutualistic networks seem to be able to recover a few years after the fire event. This result suggests that these interactions might be highly resilient to this type of disturbance.