Evolutionary stability of plant–pollinator networks: efficient communities and a pollination dilemma

Metelmann, Soeren; Sakai, Shoko; Kondo, Michio; Telschow, Arndt

doi:10.1111/ele.13588

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 52 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Pollinator recognition in H. tortuosa is likely an additional pollinator filter acting in conjunction with morphological barriers that often result in only imperfect resource partitioning by floral visitors [4,31–33]. However, this could have strong ecological implications if disturbances reduce the abundance of morphologically matched hummingbirds and the rewiring of the remaining community of floral visitors fails to buffer the loss of pollination services to H. tortuosa plants.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, H. tortuosa plants in fragmented forests show reduced seed sets compared to those in continuous forest [47], presumably due to a paucity of morphologically matched hummingbirds. Pollinator recognition is therefore likely to be an additional pollinator filter acting in conjunction with morphological barriers that often result in only imperfect resource partitioning by floral visitors [16,[48][49][50].…”

Section: Implications Of Pollinator Recognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Testing for pollinator recognition in multiple species ofHeliconia

Gannon

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Plant-pollinator generalization increases the robustness of plant-pollinator communities to fluctuations in the availability of mutualistic partners. However, natural selection may reinforce floral traits that filter pollinator communities to promote pollination by efficient pollinators, which reduces the number of potential partners. We tested the generality of a recently described, cryptic pollinator filter termed ‘pollinator recognition’ (PR) which could reduce the realized number of pollinators compared to the number of floral visitors. PR was first documented experimentally in Heliconia tortuosa whereby pollen tube germination – a proxy for reproduction – was enhanced following visits from morphologically specialized pollinators, but not generalists. We tested for PR in four taxa spread widely across the Heliconiaceae. With aviary experiments that standardized pollen quality and minimized variation in pollen quantity, we demonstrated that visits by pollen-free hummingbirds increased pollen tube rates compared to hand pollination alone in two species; we also corroborated previous results that visits by long-billed, but not short-billed hummingbirds increased pollen tubes in H. tortuosa . Based on these results, we suggest that the PR mechanism likely exists beyond a single species in the Heliconiaceae and could promote outcrossing in two ways. First, promoting pollen tube growth following a cue from a visiting pollinator could allow a plant to invest in seed production when pollen on the stigma is less likely to be composed entirely of self pollen. Second, because hummingbirds with long, decurved bills tend to be less territorial and more mobile than those with short, straight bills, pollinator recognition could act in conjunction with physical exploitation barriers, such as long and curved corolla tubes, to filter the community of floral visitors in favor of those that are more likely to carry pollen from geographically and therefore genetically distance sources. While the mechanism underlying PR remains equivocal, cryptic pollinator filters may be more common than previously anticipated and could alter perspectives on redundancy in plant-pollinator communities.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Implications Of Pollinator Recognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing for pollinator recognition in multiple species ofHeliconia

Gannon

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Losapio et al, 2018;Aslan et al, 2019). The documented relationships between interaction diversity and stability of ecological communities are partly a consequence of the number of network links, their relative strength, nestedness, and degree of specialization (Pawar, 2014;Metelmann et al, 2020). Large disturbances, extreme weather events, and continued global change can decrease the number of potential and realized interactions in mutualistic networks (Balmaki et al, 2022).…”

Section: Network Analysis and Parametersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modern approaches for leveraging biodiversity collections to understand change in plant-insect interactions

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Research on plant-pollinator interactions requires a diversity of perspectives and approaches, and documenting changing pollinator-plant interactions due to declining insect diversity and climate change is especially challenging. Natural history collections are increasingly important for such research and can provide ecological information across broad spatial and temporal scales. Here, we describe novel approaches that integrate museum specimens from insect and plant collections with field observations to quantify pollen networks over large spatial and temporal gradients. We present methodological strategies for evaluating insect-pollen network parameters based on pollen collected from museum insect specimens. These methods provide insight into spatial and temporal variation in pollen-insect interactions and complement other approaches to studying pollination, such as pollinator observation networks and flower enclosure experiments. We present example data from butterfly pollen networks over the past century in the Great Basin Desert and Sierra Nevada Mountains, United States. Complementary to these approaches, we describe rapid pollen identification methods that can increase speed and accuracy of taxonomic determinations, using pollen grains collected from herbarium specimens. As an example, we describe a convolutional neural network (CNN) to automate identification of pollen. We extracted images of pollen grains from 21 common species from herbarium specimens at the University of Nevada Reno (RENO). The CNN model achieved exceptional accuracy of identification, with a correct classification rate of 98.8%. These and similar approaches can transform the way we estimate pollination network parameters and greatly change inferences from existing networks, which have exploded over the past few decades. These techniques also allow us to address critical ecological questions related to mutualistic networks, community ecology, and conservation biology. Museum collections remain a bountiful source of data for biodiversity science and understanding global change.

show abstract

“…Mutualistic communities are examples of communities that exhibit positive feedback loops in networks of interactions between two groups of species (Bascompte and Jordano 2013; Dakos and Bascompte 2014; Kéfi et al 2016; Metelmann et al 2020). While negative interactions such as intraspecific competition could have stabilising effects, positive interactions such as those observed in plant-pollinator or mutualistic networks, could be destabilising and could result in the presence of alternative stable states (Kéfi et al 2016; Baruah 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Abrupt transitions and its indicators in mutualistic meta-networks: effects of network topology, size of metacommunities and species dispersal

Baruah

2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Gradual changes in the environment could cause dynamical ecological networks to abruptly shift from one state to an alternative state. When this happens ecosystem functions and services provided by ecological networks get disrupted. We, however, know very little about how the topology of such interaction networks can play a role in the transitions of ecological networks at a spatial scale. In the event of such unwanted transitions, little is known how statistical metrics used to inform such impending transitions, measured at the species-level or at the community-level could relate to network architecture and the scale of spatial interactions. Here, using fifty-six empirical plantpollinator networks in a spatial setting, I evaluated the impact of network topology and spatial scale of species interactions on abrupt transitions, and on statistical metrics used as predictors to forecast such abrupt transitions. Using generalized Lotka-Volttera equations in a meta-network framework, I show that species dispersal rate and the size of the metacommunity can impact when an abrupt transition can occur. In addition, forecasting such unwanted abrupt transitions of meta-networks using statistical metrics of instability was also consequently dependent on the topology of the network, species dispersal rate, and the size of the metacommunity. The results indicated that the plantpollinator meta-networks that could exhibit stronger statistical signals before collapse than others were dependent on their network architecture and on the spatial scale of species interactions.

show abstract

Evolutionary stability of plant–pollinator networks: efficient communities and a pollination dilemma

Cited by 8 publications

References 52 publications

Testing for pollinator recognition in multiple species ofHeliconia

Testing for pollinator recognition in multiple species ofHeliconia

Modern approaches for leveraging biodiversity collections to understand change in plant-insect interactions

Abrupt transitions and its indicators in mutualistic meta-networks: effects of network topology, size of metacommunities and species dispersal

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About