Mutualistic and trophic interactions are parts of the fundamental interactions that link species in natural communities and the concept of specialization has played a key role in the development of ecological and evolutionary understanding of both systems. Recently, plant-pollinator networks have been found to be highly structured in a nested pattern which presents a continuum from specialist to highly generalist species and in which specialists interact with generalist species. This structure is often assumed to be particular to mutualistic interactions in opposition to the compartmentalized pattern expected for antagonistic networks with more specialised species.

We investigated the presence of asymmetric specialization in a data set assembled from the literature of 20 highly resolved plant_insect herbivore networks and compared them with 24 plant_pollinator networks.

Results/Conclusions

Our results indicate that these two types of networks differ, but not in the way it is generally assumed. Asymmetric specialization is present in plant_herbivore networks even if it appears less frequently than in plant_pollinator networks. Indeed, mean and median percentages of species showing asymmetric specialisation in herbivory webs are 33% and 14% respectively, compared to 57% and 60% in pollination webs.

Furthermore, the amount of asymmetry is linked with species diversity and not to connectance in plant-pollinator networks whereas the opposite pattern is found in plant_herbivore networks. Our results offer promising perspectives for understanding both the mechanisms that structure ecological communities and their impact on community dynamics depending on the type of interaction.