Nectar

Sociology

Seed dispersal

Landscape connectivity

Population

Biology

Myrmecophyte

Fermentation

Habitat fragmentation

Biodiversity

Demography

Habitat

Ecology

Fragmentation (computing)

Defaunation

Generalist and specialist species

Pollen

Food science

Biological dispersal

Rumen

Ecology Letters

Mutualistic interactions repeatedly preserved across fragmented landscapes can scale‐up to form a spatial metanetwork describing the distribution of interactions across patches. We explored the structure of a bird seed‐dispersal ( BSD ) metanetwork in 16 Neotropical forest fragments to test whether a distinct subset of BSD ‐interactions may mediate landscape functional connectivity. The metanetwork is interaction‐rich, modular and poorly connected, showing high beta‐diversity and turnover of species and interactions. Interactions involving large‐sized species were lost in fragments &lt; 10 000 ha, indicating a strong filtering by habitat fragmentation on the functional diversity of BSD ‐interactions. Persistent interactions were performed by small‐seeded, fast growing plant species and by generalist, small‐bodied bird species able to cross the fragmented landscape. This reduced subset of interactions forms the metanetwork components persisting to defaunation and fragmentation, and may generate long‐term deficits of carbon storage while delaying forest regeneration at the landscape level.

Seed‐dispersal interactions in fragmented landscapes – a metanetwork approach