CLEANING ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN BIRDS AND HERBIVOROUS MAMMALS IN BRAZIL: STRUCTURE AND COMPLEXITY.

The article presents a study that examined the structure and complexity of cleaning interactions between Brazilian birds and the herbivorous mammal hosts. A network approach was applied to measure the complexity and to discover that there was a clear nested pattern of association in connection to the number of interactions of cleaners and hosts, and the variety of food types offered. The structure shows that cleaners only acquire food types that are no longer needed.