Before revision:  In this manuscript, we expand contemporary niche theory to integrate mutualistic interactions through a systematic analysis of mutualistic plant-pollinator networks. Specifically, we investigate the dynamics of a consumer-resource model of plant-pollinator interactions that has been extensively studied in numerical simulations and whose predictions have been tested against field data. We provide simple explanations in graphical terms for the qualitative phenomena consistently found by extensive numerical simulations, including the effects of nestedness and adaptive foragingon community dynamics, and the effects of invasions by new pollinator species.
After revision:  In this manuscript, we expand contemporary niche theory to integrate mutualistic interactions through a systematic analysis of mutualistic plant-pollinator networks. We graphically explain the qualitative phenomena consistently found by extensive numerical simulations, including the effects of nestedness and adaptive foragingon community dynamics, and the effects of invasions by new pollinator species.