| 1. |
- Arachchige, Erandi C.W.Subasinghe, et al.
(författare)
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A global assessment of the species composition and effectiveness of watermelon pollinators and the management strategies to inform effective pollination service delivery
- 2023
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Ingår i: Basic and Applied Ecology. - : Elsevier BV. - 1439-1791. ; 66, s. 50-62
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- For most food crops the identity and efficiency of pollinators across key growing regions remains a significant knowledge gap that needs to be addressed before we can develop crop-specific approaches for pollination service delivery. Here, we conducted a systematic literature review and meta-analysis on watermelon (Citrullus lanatus (Thunb. Matsum. & Nakai)), a globally important fruit crop, to identify the floral visitors and their efficiency across different growing regions. We found that 265 insect species visit watermelon flowers (including 5 orders, 18 families and 75 genera) across 17 countries and 6 continents. Bees and flies were the most abundant flower visitors overall, but show distinct regional differences. Honey bees were the majority visitor in 53% of growing regions (range: 0 – 94%), whilst wild bee species were more abundant in 42% of regions (range: 3.4 – 100%). Honey bees and other bees were equally effective at depositing pollen on stigmas, but varied in effectiveness for fruit set and seed set. Pollination data from global studies appear to be limited for the largest-scale watermelon producers, namely: China, Turkey, and India, with the majority (56%) of data available from North America. This synthesis identified four key themes for improving pollination in watermelon: increasing honey bee densities on crops where local polices and environmental conditions are suitable; introducing other managed pollinators; identifying key wild pollinator taxa to encourage within crops; and improving local and landscape management practices to support pollinators.
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| 2. |
- B. Lanuza, Jose, et al.
(författare)
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Covariation among reproductive traits in flowering plants shapes their interactions with pollinators
- 2023
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Ingår i: Functional Ecology. - 0269-8463. ; 37:7, s. 2072-2084
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Globally, plants display enormous variation in life-history strategies and trait combinations. However, evidence suggests that evolutionary and physiological constraints limit the number of plant ecological strategies. Although there have been recent advances in understanding correlations among plant traits, reproductive traits are rarely considered, despite their key role in shaping plant life-history strategies and interactions with pollinators. Here, using a global dataset of 18 reproductive traits for 1506 species, we investigate the reproductive spectrum of flowering plants to identify how it shapes interactions with pollinators. We show that over 50% of all trait variation is explained by the first two reproductive axes, which represent the negative correlation between flower number and flower size, and the negative correlation between autonomous selfing and floral display size. In addition, these reproductive axes were associated with the identity and number of visits of the distinct pollinator guilds. However, reproductive axes explain a relatively small amount of variance in pollinator interactions highlighting the need to incorporate other factors along with reproductive traits to fully explain large-scale patterns of plant–pollinator interactions. Our study identifies the major reproductive trait correlations in flowering plants and their role in shaping plant–pollinator interactions at a macro-ecological scale. These findings emphasise the importance of considering reproductive traits in the global spectrum of plant form and function, and the need to explore beyond floral morphological traits to broaden our understanding of plant–pollinator interactions. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
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| 3. |
- Kendall, Liam K., et al.
(författare)
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Initial floral visitor identity and foraging time strongly influence blueberry reproductive success
- 2022
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Ingår i: Basic and Applied Ecology. - : Elsevier BV. - 1439-1791. ; 60, s. 114-122
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Priority effects occur when the order of species arrival affects subsequent ecological processes. The order that pollinator species visit flowers may affect pollination through a priority effect, whereby the first visitor reduces or modifies the contribution of subsequent visits. We observed floral visitation to blueberry flowers from honeybees, stingless bees or a mixture of both species and investigated how (i) initial visits differed in duration to later visits; and (ii) how visit sequences from different pollinator taxa influenced fruit weight. Stingless bees visited blueberry flowers for significantly longer than honeybees and maintained their floral visit duration, irrespective of the number of preceding visits. In contrast, honeybee visit duration declined significantly with an increasing number of preceding visits. Fruit weight was positively associated with longer floral visit duration by honeybees but not from stingless bee or mixed species visitation. Fruit from mixed species visits were heavier overall than single species visits, because of a strong priority effect. An initial visit by a stingless bee fully pollinated the flower, limiting the pollination contribution of future visitors. However, after an initial honeybee visit, flowers were not fully pollinated and additional visitation had an additive effect upon fruit weight. Blueberries from flowers visited first by stingless bees were 60% heavier than those visited first by honeybees when total floral visitation was short (∼1 min). However, when total visitation time was long (∼ 8 min), blueberry fruit were 24% heavier when initial visits were from honeybees. Our findings highlight that the initial floral visit can have a disproportionate effect on pollination outcomes. Considering priority effects alongside traditional measures of pollinator effectiveness will provide a greater mechanistic understanding of how pollinator communities influence plant reproductive success.
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| 4. |
- Kendall, Liam K, et al.
(författare)
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The potential and realized foraging movements of bees are differentially determined by body size and sociality
- 2022
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Ingår i: Ecology. - : Wiley. - 0012-9658 .- 1939-9170. ; 103:11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Reversing biodiversity declines requires a better understanding of organismal mobility, as movement processes dictate the scale at which species interact with the environment. Previous studies have demonstrated that species foraging ranges, and therefore, habitat use increases with body size. Yet, foraging ranges are also affected by other life-history traits, such as sociality, which influence the need of and ability to detect resources. We evaluated the effect of body size and sociality on potential and realized foraging ranges using a compiled dataset of 383 measurements for 81 bee species. Potential ranges were larger than realized ranges and increased more steeply with body size. Highly eusocial species had larger realized foraging ranges than primitively eusocial or solitary taxa. We contend that potential ranges describe species movement capabilities, whereas realized ranges depict how foraging movements result from interactions between species traits and environmental conditions. Furthermore, the complex communication strategies and large colony sizes in highly eusocial species may facilitate foraging over wider areas in response to resource depletion. Our findings should contribute to a greater understanding of landscape ecology and conservation, as traits that influence movement mediate species vulnerability to habitat loss and fragmentation.
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| 5. |
- Samnegård, Ulrika, et al.
(författare)
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Within-bloom shift in abundance of a wild pollinator mediates pollen deposition rates to blueberry
- 2023
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Ingår i: Basic and Applied Ecology. - 1439-1791. ; 72, s. 64-73
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Intra-seasonal variation in abiotic and biotic conditions can have profound consequences for pollinator community compositions and foraging movement, with flow-on effects upon pollination services. Yet, few studies have related such variations to pollination services in crop systems. In a cultivated highbush blueberry system with two primary pollinators — the managed European honey bee and a wild stingless bee species — we investigated how pollinator abundances, bee foraging behaviour, and con- and heterospecific stigmatic pollen loads changed over early, mid, and late blueberry blooming. Both con- and heterospecific stigmatic pollen loads declined following early bloom. This shift was associated with a decline in the abundance of stingless bees, whereas the abundance of honey bees only declined during late bloom. Simultaneously, honey bees were more likely to forage for blueberry pollen, and stigmatic pollen loads, relative to bee abundance, increased during late bloom. Although mixed pollen loads were common on pollinator bodies, especially on pollen foraging honey bees, heterospecific pollen deposition on blueberry stigmas was low. Given the similar effectiveness of honey bees and stingless bees as pollinators of blueberries, we contend that the observed seasonal variation in pollen deposition is likely caused by the decline in stingless bee abundances, as honey bees were not able to fully compensate for the loss of stingless bees during late bloom. Greater consideration of seasonal heterogeneity of pollinator abundance and behaviour, as part of pollination management plans, may aid in ensuring high pollination services throughout the entirety of crop bloom.
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| 6. |
- Saunders, Manu E., et al.
(författare)
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Climate mediates roles of pollinator species in plant–pollinator networks
- 2023
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Ingår i: Global Ecology and Biogeography. - : Wiley. - 1466-822X .- 1466-8238. ; 32:4, s. 511-518
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aim: Understanding how climate conditions influence plant–pollinator interactions at the global scale is crucial to understand how pollinator communities and ecosystem function respond to environmental change. Here, we investigate whether climate drives differences in network roles of the main insect pollinator orders: Diptera, Coleoptera, Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera. Location: Global. Time period: 1968–2020. Major taxa studied: Diptera, Coleoptera, Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera. Methods: We collated plant–pollinator networks from 26 countries and territories across the five main Köppen–Geiger climate zones. In total, we compiled data from 101 networks that included >1500 plant species from 167 families and >2800 pollinator species from 163 families. We assessed differences in the composition of plant–pollinator interactions among climate zones using a permutational ANOVA. We calculated standard network metrics for pollinator taxonomic groups and used Bayesian generalized mixed models to test whether climate zone influenced the proportion of pollinator network links and the level of pollinator generalism. Results: We found that climate is a strong driver of compositional dissimilarities between plant–pollinator interactions. Relative to other taxa, bees and flies made up the greatest proportion of network links across climate zones. When network size was accounted for, bees were the most generalist pollinator group in the tropics, whereas non-bee Hymenoptera were the most generalist in arid zones, and syrphid flies were the most generalist in polar networks. Main conclusions: We provide empirical evidence at the global scale that climate strongly influences the roles of different pollinator taxa within networks. Importantly, non-bee taxa, particularly flies, play central network roles across most climate zones, despite often being overlooked in pollination research and conservation. Our results identify the need for greater understanding of how global environmental change affects plant–pollinator interactions.
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