Regional species coexistence despite local priority effects: the overlooked role of dispersal-community feedback

Dispersal-community feedback between pollinators and nectar-inhabiting bacteria and yeast promotes regional coexistence across a wide range of regional pollinator abundances.

• Why it matters: Non-random animal dispersal that responds to local community composition is common, but its role in metacommunity coexistence remains underexplored.
• What they did: A mathematical metacommunity model of nectar-inhabiting bacteria and yeast dispersed by pollinators incorporates priority effects within flowers and tests when coexistence depends on how microbe occurrence alters flower-visit frequency.
• The result: Regional coexistence occurs only when microbes influence pollinator visitation rates, implying microbe-pollinator feedback can stabilize coexistence despite plant-scale competitive exclusion.

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