Abstract
Ecological communities consist of multiple species interacting in diverse ways. Understanding the mechanisms supporting coexistence requires accounting for such a diversity. Because most works focus either on mutualism or predation, how pollination and herbivory interactively determine the stable coexistence in plant-pollinator-herbivore communities is still poorly understood. Studying the typical three-species module of such communities, we determine the conditions allowing stable coexistence then investigate how its maintenance constrains the relative interaction strengths. Our results show that coexistence is possible if pollination is sufficiently strong relative to herbivory, while its stability is possible if herbivory is sufficiently strong relative to pollination. A balance between pollination and herbivory is therefore required. Interestingly, shared preferences for plant phenotypes, that would favor such balance, have been frequently reported in the empirical literature. The identified ecological trade-off between attracting pollinators and deterring herbivores therefore also appears as an emergent property of stable plant-pollinator-herbivore communities.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Footnotes
Statement of authorship N.L. and Y.Y. conceived the ideas. The analytical work was done by Y.Y. Results were analyzed by both N.L. and Y.Y. Y.Y. wrote the first draft of the manuscript that has been subsequently reviewed and edited by N.L. All authors contributed critically to the drafts and gave final approval for publication.
Data accessibility statement No data were used in the present work.