%0 Journal Article
%T Microevolutionary Effects of Habitat Fragmentation on Plant-Animal Interactions
%A Francisco E. Font¨˛rbel
%A Maureen M. Mur¨˛a
%J Advances in Ecology
%D 2014
%R 10.1155/2014/379267
%X Plant-animal interactions are a key component for biodiversity maintenance, but they are currently threatened by human activities. Habitat fragmentation might alter ecological interactions due to demographic changes, spatial discontinuities, and edge effects. Also, there are less evident effects of habitat fragmentation that potentially alter selective forces and compromise the fitness of the interacting species. Changes in the mutualistic and antagonistic interactions in fragmented habitats could significantly influence the plant reproductive output and the fauna assemblage associated with. Fragmented habitats may trigger contemporary evolution processes and open new evolutionary opportunities. Interacting parties with a diffuse and asymmetric relationship are less susceptible to local extinction but more prone to evolve towards new interactions or autonomy. However, highly specialized mutualisms are likely to disappear. On the other hand, ecological interactions may mutually modulate their response in fragmented habitats, especially when antagonistic interactions disrupt mutualistic ones. Ecoevolutionary issues of habitat fragmentation have been little explored, but the empiric evidence available suggests that the complex modification of ecological interactions in fragmented habitats might lead to nonanalogous communities on the long term. 1. Introduction Plant-animal coevolution was described for the first time by Darwin ([1, 2], but see [3]), relating the morphologic specificity between orchids and moths, stating that such precise correspondence could not be generated by chance. From DarwinĄŻs ideas, a wide conceptual framework has been developed regarding plant-animal coevolution [4, 5], from the perspective of the antagonistic (herbivory and parasitism) and mutualistic (pollination and seed dispersal) interactions. There is a growing body of literature regarding the importance of plant-animal interactions for the ecosystem functionality and stability. Moreover, those interactions are not constant over time; on the contrary, they are highly dynamic and susceptible to small and large temporal (ecological and geological times, resp.) and spatial (patch and landscape, resp.) scale disturbances. In the last decades, human activities have led to habitat loss and fragmentation worldwide, causing the disruption of plant-animal mutualisms [6, 7] and the strengthening of some antagonisms [8¨C10]. While, in the last 15 years, the ecological consequences of habitat fragmentation have been studied in detail [11] but the microevolutionary aspects related to the
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ae/2014/379267/