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<p>Complex ecological community stability is a central issue in ecology. While network robustness is widely evaluated using coextinction models, empirical metrics are highly sensitive to structural artifacts such as network size and connectance. Furthermore, the role of visitor sex in shaping network topology is frequently overlooked. This study investigated the true structural robustness of flower-visitor networks by partitioning them into female and male subnetworks. To rigorously disentangle topological resilience from size-dependent artifacts, empirical robustness metrics against both simulated visitor and flower extinctions were standardized into <i>Z</i>-scores using two distinct null models. While raw empirical measurements misleadingly suggested that the combined full networks were the most robust, null-model standardizations revealed a profound reversal. Against visitor extinctions, female subnetworks demonstrated significantly higher structural robustness than the full networks. This female-driven resilience persisted even when highly abundant eusocial bees were fully excluded. Conversely, this robustness was not observed against flower extinctions, reflecting a trophic asymmetry where plants act as indispensable hubs. These findings provide the first empirical evidence that female foraging behaviors construct the true, highly resilient architectural core of pollination communities.</p>

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Female visitors construct the robust architectural core of flower-visitor networks

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年8月5日

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  • Shigeki Kishi

摘要

Complex ecological community stability is a central issue in ecology. While network robustness is widely evaluated using coextinction models, empirical metrics are highly sensitive to structural artifacts such as network size and connectance. Furthermore, the role of visitor sex in shaping network topology is frequently overlooked. This study investigated the true structural robustness of flower-visitor networks by partitioning them into female and male subnetworks. To rigorously disentangle topological resilience from size-dependent artifacts, empirical robustness metrics against both simulated visitor and flower extinctions were standardized into Z-scores using two distinct null models. While raw empirical measurements misleadingly suggested that the combined full networks were the most robust, null-model standardizations revealed a profound reversal. Against visitor extinctions, female subnetworks demonstrated significantly higher structural robustness than the full networks. This female-driven resilience persisted even when highly abundant eusocial bees were fully excluded. Conversely, this robustness was not observed against flower extinctions, reflecting a trophic asymmetry where plants act as indispensable hubs. These findings provide the first empirical evidence that female foraging behaviors construct the true, highly resilient architectural core of pollination communities.