The planning and implementation of restoration in the Tropical Andes have yet to incorporate functional attributes of ecosystems such as pollination. Mutualistic network approaches can be especially useful for this purpose. For example, within networks of hummingbirds and their pollinated plants, most interactions occur on a small number of plant species that are key to conserve and recover pollination functions. To identify such species, centrality metrics derived from network analysis are readily available and can be easily applied. Our study was conducted in the southern Andes of Ecuador in four vegetation types: old‐growth forest, secondary forest, hedgerows, and montane shrub. On each vegetation type, we surveyed hummingbird visitation to plants and constructed plant–hummingbird interaction networks. We calculated a centrality index for each plant species and used this index to describe the individual role of species as either key or peripheral. We also explored how different functional traits of plants, including flower abundance, morphology, and nectar characteristics, were associated with the variation in this index. We found a total of 123 unique pairwise interactions between 44 plant and 15 hummingbird species. Within each vegetation type, we identified 4–11 key plant species. A shrubby life form and abundant flowers were the main traits associated with the key role of species. This study shows a robust protocol to select plant assemblages for the recovery of plant–hummingbird communities.

South American grasslands contain extraordinary biodiversity and play a central role in the subsistence of regional agroecosystems. In recent decades, afforestation, followed by the soybean planting boom, have led to drastic land‐use changes at the expense of grasslands. Impacts on local biodiversity have remained understudied. We explored the taxonomic richness and ß‐diversity of plants of ground layer (excluding trees and shrubs) at different land uses, its interplay at regional scale with environmental heterogeneity, and at local scale with novel land cover types and landscape configurations. We conducted correlation, principal component, NDMS, and SDR analysis to explore variation of taxonomic richness, richness difference, replacement, and similarity of ground flora as response to environmental filters and land use change across Uruguay. We surveyed 160 plots distributed in 10 land cover types, that is, closed and open native forests, different grasslands, crops, orchards, and timber plantations. We observed overlaying regional patterns driven by seasonality of temperature and precipitation, and land cover shaping taxonomic richness at local scale. Landscape configuration affects diversity patterns of native ground flora, which seems to be sustained mainly by the “old growth grassland” species pool. Taxonomic richness of native species decreases with an increase of distance to grassland. Crops and grasslands harbor a higher number of native species in the ground flora than native forests and timber plantations. The introduction of exotics is driven mostly by crops or highly modified pastures. Diversity patterns only partially reflect the ecoregion concept. Expanding the perspective from conservation in purely natural ecosystems to measures conserving species richness in human‐modified landscapes is a powerful tool against species loss in the Anthropocene.