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bioRxiv · 10.1101/2020.01.10.901314

Staying in the club: Exploring criteria governing metacommunity membership for obligate symbionts under host-symbiont feedback

Venkateswaran, V.·Borges, R. M.
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Abstract

O_LIMetacommunity membership is influenced by habitat availability and trophic requirements. However, for multitrophic symbiont communities that are closely associated with host plants, symbionts and hosts may additionally influence each other affecting membership criteria in novel ways. For example, failure of beneficial services from a symbiont could elicit a response from the host that impacts the entire community. Understanding such host-symbiont feedback effects on symbiont community membership can be crucial for understanding symbiont community structure and function. C_LIO_LIWe investigate membership for a multitrophic insect symbiont community where symbionts colonize host inflorescences during specific developmental stages termed colonization windows. Inflorescences are host-derived organs and serve as habitat microcosms. Symbionts exhibit a diversity of interactions ranging from mutualism to parasitism. Hosts exhibit immediate feedback by aborting inflorescences not pollinated by mutualistic symbionts and habitats are consequently lost for all other symbiont species. Using relevant empirically measured microcosm parameters, we simulate symbiont dispersal from and colonization of other host inflorescences. We vary host densities and symbiont colonization window lengths, and track the persistence of each symbiont species in the metacommunity based on the temporal availability of the resource and the trophic position of the symbiont. C_LIO_LISince the persistence of the microcosm habitat is dictated by pollination performed by the mutualist, the mutualist fares better than all other symbionts. For prey, the length of colonization windows was positively related with colonization success and symbiont persistence. For predators, the cumulative length of the colonization windows of their prey dictated their success; diet breadth or prey colonization success did not influence the persistence of predators. Predators also had a greater host-plant density requirement than prey for persistence in the community. These results offer valuable insights into host density requirements for maintaining symbionts, and have implications for multitrophic symbiont community stability. C_LIO_LISynthesis. Factors influencing symbiont community membership can be unique when host-symbiont feedback impacts host microcosm development. Special constraints can govern symbiont community membership, function and structure and symbiont persistence in such metacommunities. C_LI

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Venkateswaran, V., Borges, R. M.. 2020-01-10. Staying in the club: Exploring criteria governing metacommunity membership for obligate symbionts under host-symbiont feedback. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.10.901314

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