The relationship between species richness of vertebrate mutualists and their food plants in tropical and subtropical communities differs among hemispheres

Non‐random statistical patterns have long been of interest to community ecologists. Recent studies of communities of mutualists have revealed non‐random patterns in terms of connectance, degree of specialization, and nestedness. Currently unstudied, however, are the detailed statistical relationships between tropical vertebrate mutualists and their food plants in different parts of the world. Here, I review 87 studies that quantify the relationship between species richness of nectar‐ or fruit‐eating birds and bats and species richness of their food plants in New and Old World, mostly tropical, communities. This analysis revealed that in the New World, number of plant‐visiting birds and bats per community was significantly correlated with number of food plants and that the slopes of regression equations were the same for nectarivores and frugivores. The New World quantitative assembly rule states that it takes about three species of flowers or fruits to support one species of plant‐visiting bird or bat. This relationship does not appear to exist in Old World communities, in which species richness of nectar‐ or fruit‐eating birds or bats was independent of species richness of their food plants. These geographic differences likely reflect a greater degree of feeding specialization in plant‐visiting vertebrates in the New World than in the Old World. I hypothesize that hemispheric differences in the spatio‐temporal predictability (STP) of food resources ultimately determine levels of dietary specialization and structure in communities of New and Old World plant‐visiting vertebrates.