Network Biology, 2018, 8(2): 55-64 IAEES www.iaees.org Article Robustness of plant-plant networks with different levels of habitat modification and interaction intimacy Walter Santos de Araújo Department of General Biology, Center of Biological Sciences and Health, Universidade Estadual de Minas Gerais, 39401-089, Montes Claros, Brazil E-mail: walterbioaraujo@yahoo.com.br Received 17 February 2018; Accepted 5 March 2018; Published 1 June 2018 Abstract Anthropogenic modification of natural environments is the main causes of species extinction in the globe, which directly leads to loss of interspecific links and modifies the structure of ecological networks. The objective of present study is to evaluate the effect of human-induced habitat modification on the connectivity and robustness of ecological interaction networks composed by plant-epiphyte and plant-parasite interactions. In total were analyzed eight distinct binary networks of plant-plant interactions in Brazil, being three epiphyte networks and five parasite networks occurring both in conserved and anthropized habitats. The results show that the human-induced habitat modification influences the connectance of plant-plant networks, since networks of anthropized habitats had greater connectance than the networks of conserved habitats. In addition, the results showed higher values of robustness in the plant-parasite networks when compared to plant-epiphyte networks, and these differences were mainly observed in anthropized habitats. This study presented a new approach for studies of plant-plant ecological interactions, because is the first to compare the effect of human-induced habitat modification on the plant-plant network robustness. Keywords Brazil; coextinctions; ecological networks; habitat loss; Neotropical interactions. 1 Introduction Anthropogenic habitat modification is the main causes of species extinction in the globe (Smart et al., 2006), which directly affects the loss of interspecific links, disrupting ecological networks and compromising the functioning of ecosystems (Tylianakis et al., 2010). Plants are the organisms more frequently studied concerning to ecological interaction networks in terrestrial ecosystems. There are a very large bibliography about the effects of habitat disturbance on networks involving plant-animal interactions (review in Hagen et al., 2012), but there are still relatively few studies focused on plant-plant interactions. In this sense, an issue unexplored is how plant-plant networks are affected by human-induced habitat modification. There is a relative consensus that human-induced habitat modification has negative consequences on native plant species richness (Ellis et al., 2012). These negative effects are directly linked to deforestation of Network Biology ISSN 22208879 URL: http://www.iaees.org/publications/journals/nb/onlineversion.asp RSS: http://www.iaees.org/publications/journals/nb/rss.xml Email: networkbiology@iaees.org EditorinChief: WenJun Zhang Publisher: International Academy of Ecology and Environmental Sciences