Q49 - Specialization and Phylogenetic Structure in a Bird-Plant Interaction Network

Theoretical B Real exam question - full text reproduced under IBO's CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license

Plants interact with animals, and within a habitat, entire plant and animal communities form complex interaction networks. One important class of plant–animal networks is between fruit-eating birds and plants with fleshy fruit (Fig.). Observed interactions are partly determined by plant traits, but many other factors may be in play, e.g. the phylogenetic history of species communities.

A, interaction matrix between fruit-eating bird species (rows) and fleshy-fruited plant species (columns). Each ‘1’ is an observed interaction, and each ‘0’ is no interaction. The phylogenies of the communities of birds and plants are included; B–D, small artificial networks showing various interaction pattern (from Jordano 2010).

Figure 1. Figure 1.

Using the information and data, determine which of the statements are true or which are false.

A. The bird community has many food generalists, but only few specialists

B. The plant community has many fruit consumer specialists, but only few generalists

C. Phylogenetic relatedness is an important driver of interactions in network B

D. Closely related birds reduce food overlap more in network C than in network D

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Question reproduced from IBO 2015, Theoretical Exam B, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 - attributed to the International Biology Olympiad. Open the full exam PDF · Community solutions (unofficial)