Jordano Barbudo, Pedro D.Bartomeus Roig, IgnasiArroyo Correa, Blanca2025-04-242025-04-242025-01-31Arroyo Correa, B. (2025). Linking individual niches to the structure, functioning and stability of mutualistic communities: insights from plant-pollinator assemblages. (Tesis Doctoral Inédita). Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla.https://hdl.handle.net/11441/172025Plant–animal mutualistic interactions, where both partners benefit, are crucial for the diversification and maintenance of biodiversity on Earth. These interactions give rise to mutualistic networks, which have been extensively studied from a species-based perspective by aggregating or averaging interactions observed across individuals. While this approach has advanced ecological theory, it overlooks the fine-scale processes occurring at the individual level, such as those associated with specific traits and spatial or temporal aspects. These processes ultimately drive the structure, functioning, and stability of mutualistic communities. However, logistical challenges in collecting detailed data and a lack of theoretical frameworks have hindered linking individual-level mechanisms to broader community patterns. Since interactions occur between individuals rather than species, bridging these organization levels is essential for understanding how species interactions shape communities and sustain biodiversity. This PhD thesis addresses these gaps, combining high-resolution empirical data with advanced modeling approaches to explore the individual-level processes underpinning mutualistic communities. By downscaling to the individual level, this thesis overcomes current methodological and theoretical limitations and provide a comprehensive understanding of these communities. Chapter 1 employs an agent-based model to explore how interactions between plant individuals and pollinators shape network structure, focusing on the effects of the plant spatial configuration, foraging behavior, and species abundance over a flowering season. Chapter 2 investigates how pollinator sharing among plant individuals, shaped by flowering synchrony and spatial configuration, affects plant fitness and indirect interactions within communities. Chapter 3 integrates niche and network theories to explore the patterns of intraspecific variation in pollinator use and how variation among individuals in a key plant trait influences network structure and stability. Chapter 4 develops a theoretical framework to model population dynamics within mutualistic communities from an individual-based perspective, exploring how individual specialization affect the persistence of co-occurring species. These chapters advance our understanding of how individuals' traits and interactions shape mutualistic communities and contribute to biodiversity, offering new insights into the mechanisms underpinning complex ecological systems. The urgency of interdisciplinary work and innovative methodologies to integrate multiple organization levels is underscored by the rapid pace of global change, as variation within species is increasingly threatened. The findings of this PhD thesis suggest that conservation efforts that overlook this variation may fail to account for the adaptive capacities of populations, potentially undermining the long-term stability of these populations. This is particularly relevant in a community context, as variation within species defines the patterns of interactions between species, influencing population and community persistence. By integrating insights from individual-based studies into conservation planning, we can tailor strategies that ensure the persistence of species and interactions and maintain ecosystem functions.application/pdf303 p.engAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesisinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess