Interconnectedness of the Grinnellian and Eltonian Niche in Regional and Local Plant-Pollinator Communities

Abstract

Understanding the causes and consequences of coexistence and thus biodiversity is one of the most fundamental endeavors of ecology, which has been addressed by studying species’ requirements and impacts – conceptualized as their Grinnellian and Eltonian niches. However, different niche types have been mostly studied in isolation and thus potential covariation between them remains unknown. Here we quantified the realized Grinnellian niche (environmental requirements), the fundamental (morphological phenotype) and realized Eltonian niche (role in networks) of plant and pollinator taxa at a local and regional scale to investigate the interconnectedness of these niche types. We found a strong and scale-independent co-variation of niche types suggesting that taxa specialized in environmental factors are also specialized in their position in trait spaces and their role in bipartite networks. The integration of niche types thus will help to detect the true causes for species distributions, interaction networks, as well as the taxonomic and functional diversity of communities.

Ödenwinkel: an Alpine platform for observational and experimental research on the emergence of multidiversity and ecosystem complexity

“…Based on the results presented here, we cannot discriminate between the effects of mutual influences among the taxa, environmental factors, and random processes. Likewise, the direction of these effects cannot be directly assessed, i.e., whether microbes affect the composition of plant communities (Klironomos, 2002) or vice versa and whether plant-microbe interactions subsequently affect plant-animal interactions (Benítez et al, 2017;Karamanoli et al, 2020;Peters et al, 2017). However, the available data allow more detailed analyses to generate hypotheses to be tested in field or lab experiments.…”

Microclimatic effects on alpine plant communities and flower-visitor interactions

“…We further hypothesized direct positive effects of plant cover and plant richness on insect family richness 11,33 . Lastly, we expected a direct positive effect of plant cover as well as plant and insect species richness on the number of plant-insect interactions and a negative relationship of these variables with complementary specialization H 2 ' 10,12,19 . To test these hypotheses we conducted a path analysis, which can be useful for investigating complex causal relationships in ecosystems and between different trophic levels 34,35 .…”

“…For instance, the diversities of plants and their flower visitors have been shown to be particularly related due to insect-specific preferences for certain plant species 10-12 . Therefore, a change in plant abundance and distribution and shifts in phenologies due to rising temperatures potentially have negative effects on other trophic levels, in particular on flower visiting insects 13,14 and thus impact community structure and put ecosystem functions at risk 15 .Among the main drivers of (alpine) plant diversity are climatic conditions and biotic interactions [16][17][18][19] . However, plant community composition and diversity are not only shaped by average environmental and climatic conditions but also by local micro-abiotic filtering 20 .…”

“…Among the main drivers of (alpine) plant diversity are climatic conditions and biotic interactions [16][17][18][19] . However, plant community composition and diversity are not only shaped by average environmental and climatic conditions but also by local micro-abiotic filtering 20 .…”

Plant Functional Niches in Forests Across Four Climatic Zones: Exploring the Periodic Table of Niches Based on Plant Functional Traits

“…The definition of the n-dimensional functional niche is analogous to the Hutchinson (1957) niche concept, except that the axes represent functional traits rather than environmental resources (Rosenfeld, 2002;Li et al, 2017). A trait-based analysis of niches may provide a better insight into community dynamics, because easily measurable functional traits not only co-vary with environmental gradients but also directly reflect the adaptive strategies of different species under varied living conditions (Violle and Jiang, 2009;Junker et al, 2019). Accordingly, ecologists have identified some patterns of niche variation based on functional traits that are strongly and consistently associated with environmental gradients (Smith et al, 2013).…”