Interactions of plants and frugivorous birds as a D3 network
Bird-plant interactions for seed dispersal (BSD) are organized as within-fragment networks of interactions, conforming a spatial metanetwork of local assemblages. In these networks, the most central nodes are the fragments (a total of 16 in SE Brazil), while the numerous nodes surrounding them are the interactions recorded in each fragment. Here we are depicting the interactions (i.e., the presence of an interaction) of just the frugivorous bird species and the fruiting plants.
The study areas are forest fragments that varied from 0.66 to 42,000 ha, in a gradient of disturbance from semi-pristine Biological Reserves and State Parks to secondary forest fragments and restored private land. The metanetwork plant-frugivore assemblage includes 335 plant species interacting with 175 bird species across 16 studied fragments of the Atlantic Forest. Combined, they comprised a total of 2591 distinct bird seed-dispersal interactions of which only 201 (7.76%) were recorded in at least two fragments. The rest are exclusive from a given area and are readily seen as the "fan"-shaped groups of nodes in the metanetwork. The interactions on the links are potential "connector" interactions, presumably contirbuting to the cohesiveness of the metanetwork.
You can interact with the graphs moving selected nodes (click and drag) of the network and visualizing how the whole web reshapes, indicating the overall effect of a particular interaction or a specific fragment. Also, hovering the mouse over a node highlights the latin species names of the partner species or the area name for the fragments. Just reload the page to reorder. The ordination of the network is done with an energy-minimization algorithm. You can refresh the layout by reloading the page or with ctrl-rightclick-Reload within each frame.