Effects of a snowstorm event on the interactions between plants and hummingbirds: fast recovery of spatio-temporal patterns

Resumen

The global climatic change could cause, in some places, appearance of meteorological phenomena considered
rare. If we understand the effect of these phenomena on birds we can understand how birds respond to weather changes.
We report here the effect of a severe snowfall on hummingbird activity, flower abundance and hummingbird-plant
interaction in a temperate forest of central Mexico. During our study we registered 1 hummingbird species (Hylocharis
leucotis) and 7 plant species (Fuchsia thymifolia, F. microphyla, Salvia amarissima, S. elegants, Cestrum roseum,
Penstemon campanulatus and Lonicera mexicana). Before the sudden climatic phenomena we registered 66 records
of hummingbirds, 8 700 flowers, and 6 hummingbird visits to flowers. During the phenomena, there were zero
hummingbird records, 160 flowers and zero visits. A month after the event there were 67 hummingbirds records, 1 825
flowers and 13 visits. Hummingbird activity recovered rapidly after the snowstorm, but 6 of 7 plants species lost all
their flowers, except for L. mexicana, which received all hummingbird visits a month after the climatic event.