Kelly, D.; Robertson, A. W.; Ladley, J. J.; Anderson, S. H.; McKenzie, R. J. In press. The relative (un)importance of introduced animals as pollinators and dispersers of native plants. Edited by R. B. Allen & W. G. Lee. Biological Invasions in New Zealand. Springer, Berlin.
ABSTRACT
We review the importance of introduced animals for pollination and dispersal mutualisms of New Zealand native plants. Introduced bird species make up 31% of the species lists of visitors to native fruits and flowers, but only make 5% of all visits. The most important introduced birds at native flowers (house sparrow) and fruits (blackbird) make only 3-4% of visits, about the same share of total visitation made by endemic stitchbirds and saddlebacks, despite these rare endemics being absent from 80-90% of sites. The major shift since human arrival in New Zealand is towards reliance on the recently-arrived native silvereye, which makes 38% of all fruit visits and 31% of flower visits to native plants and is the single most important bird mutualist. Four natives (silvereye, bellbird, tui, kereru) make 89% and 84% of all bird visits to flowers and fruit respectively. Introduced species are more important among flower visits by invertebrates (29% of visits), with Apis, Bombus and Vespula about equally important. However, more study is needed on the effectiveness of various flower and fruit visitors.