Domestic honeybees affect the performance of pre-dispersal seed predators in an alpine meadow

Xi, Xinqiang; Dong, Yuran; Tian, Xingjun; Xu, Haigen; Zhou, Qixing; Niklas, Karl J.; Sun, Shucun

doi:10.1007/s00442-018-4095-5

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…The annual mean precipitation is about 744 mm, 80% of which occurs during May-August. Many forb species in the study site are dependent on pollinators for seed production (Xi et al, 2018), and an independent experiment (Mu et al, 2014) showed that bagged Asteraceae flowerheads (i.e. capitula) have a much lower seed set rate (0%-20%) than unbagged ones (>80%) among seven species.…”

Section: Study Sitementioning

confidence: 96%

Rare plant species are at a disadvantage when both herbivory and pollination interactions are considered in an alpine meadow

Zhou

et al. 2021

Journal of Animal Ecology

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1. Rare plant species often suffer less damage than common species because of positive density-dependent herbivory, and it has been suggested that this 'rare species advantage' fosters plant species coexistence. However, it is unknown whether rare species have an advantage when pollination interactions are also considered.2. We hypothesized that a 'positive density-dependent pollination success' across plant species would result in common plants experiencing higher seed set rates compared to rare species, and that positive density-dependent effects would negate or even override the positive density-dependent damage due to herbivory resulting in higher seed loss rates in common plant species.3. We tested this hypothesis by concurrently examining a plant-predispersal seed predator system and a plant-pollinator system for 24 Asteraceae species growing in an alpine meadow community (Sichuan Province, China). Having previously reported a positive density-dependent effect on seed loss rates due to seed predators, we here focus on the density-dependent effects on pollination success by investigating pollinator species richness, visitation frequencies and seed set rates for each plant species. We also estimated the seed output rate of each plant species as the product of seed set rate and the rate of surviving seeds (i.e. 1 − the seed loss rate). 4. Consistent with our hypothesis, a positive density-dependent effect was observed for pollinator species richness, visitation frequencies and seed set rates across plant species. Moreover, the positive effect overrode the negative density-dependent effect of herbivores on seed production, such that common species tended to have a higher seed output rate than rare species (i.e. we observed a 'rare species disadvantage').5. These results indicate that the low seed output rate of rare species might result from a pollination limitation, and that both mutualistic and antagonistic interactions should be examined simultaneously to fully understand plant species coexistence in local communities.

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Section: Study Sitementioning

confidence: 96%

Rare plant species are at a disadvantage when both herbivory and pollination interactions are considered in an alpine meadow

Zhou

et al. 2021

Journal of Animal Ecology

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“…nigrescens in our study, such as T . megalopyge , is typically larger in body size compared to the generalist fly species (Xi et al, ). Hence, they require larger amounts of nutrients and energy for their growth and development.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental reduction of plant abundance changes interaction frequency of a tri‐trophic micro‐food web: contrasting responses of generalists and specialists

Zhang

Wang

et al. 2019

Journal of Ecology

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Species abundance is vulnerable to climate change and anthropogenic impact. Although numerous studies have examined the food web response to species loss, their response (e.g. in network topology and interaction frequency) to changes in species abundance has received little attention. We experimentally reduced the abundance (by c. 60%) of one host plant species (Saussurea nigrescens) in a tri‐trophic micro‐food web consisting of two common Asteraceae species (S. nigrescens and Anaphalis flavescens), their pre‐dispersal seed predators (tephritid flies) and the parasitoid wasps that feed on these seed predators. The neutral process hypothesis posits that network topology and interaction frequency are determined by the relative abundances of the participating species. Accordingly, we hypothesized that interaction frequency (indicated by the rate of flies infesting plants and of parasitoid wasps parasitizing flies) would decrease with decreasing abundance of host plant abundance. Consistent with the neutral process hypothesis, abundance reduction significantly decreased the rate of generalist flies infesting the manipulated plant host species, but increased the rate on unmanipulated plant species. In contrast, abundance reduction significantly increased the rate of specialist flies infesting the manipulated species, but it had no demonstrable effect on the specialists on the unmanipulated plant host. Moreover, abundance reduction significantly increased the rate of parasitoid wasps (as a species group) parasitizing flies in the manipulated species, but decreased the rate of the unmanipulated species. These results were not attributable to neutral processes, but can be explained by adaptive foraging theory. In addition, experimental manipulation did not shift the qualitative presence–absence of the linkages in the micro‐food web, and the change in the abundance of both fly and wasp species was smaller than the abundance changes of the manipulated plant species. Synthesis. Our results indicate that both neutral processes and/or adaptive foraging likely contributed to food web stability in responses to changes in species abundance. Because species abundance is vulnerable to abiotic and biotic environmental changes, we suggest more research should be conducted to understand how food webs respond to climate change and anthropogenic disturbance.

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“…The average vegetation coverage is over 90%, and the average plant height is about 30 cm. Previous studies have shown that the alpine meadow is taxonomically diverse in insect herbivores and pollinators such as bumblebees, flies, hoverflies, moth and butterflies [26].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relative species abundance successfully predicts nestedness and interaction frequency of monthly pollination networks in an alpine meadow

Dong

Sun

2019

PLoS ONE

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Plant-pollinator networks have been repeatedly reported as cumulative ones that are described with >1 years observations. However, such cumulative networks are composed of pairwise interactions recorded at different periods, and thus may not be able to reflect the reality of species interactions in nature (e.g., early-flowering plants typically do not compete for shared pollinators with late-flowering plants, but they are assumed to do so in accumulated networks). Here, we examine the monthly sampling structure of an alpine plant-pollinator bipartite network over a two-year period to determine whether relative species abundance and species traits better explain the network structure of monthly networks than yearly ones. Although community composition and species abundance varied from one month to another, the monthly networks (as well as the yearly networks described with annual pooled data) had a highly nested structure, in which specialists directly interact with generalist partners. Moreover, relative species abundance predicted the nestedness in both the monthly and yearly networks and accounted for a statistically significant percentage of the variation (i.e., 20%-44%) in the pairwise interactions of monthly networks, but not yearly networks. The combination of relative species abundance and species traits (but not species traits only) showed a similar prediction power in terms of both network nestedness and pairwise interaction frequencies. Considering the previously recognized structural pattern and associated mechanisms of plant-pollinator networks, we propose that relative species abundance may be an important factor influencing both nestedness and interaction frequency of pollination networks.

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Domestic honeybees affect the performance of pre-dispersal seed predators in an alpine meadow

Cited by 6 publications

References 31 publications

Rare plant species are at a disadvantage when both herbivory and pollination interactions are considered in an alpine meadow

Rare plant species are at a disadvantage when both herbivory and pollination interactions are considered in an alpine meadow

Experimental reduction of plant abundance changes interaction frequency of a tri‐trophic micro‐food web: contrasting responses of generalists and specialists

Relative species abundance successfully predicts nestedness and interaction frequency of monthly pollination networks in an alpine meadow

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