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77 results for “floral resources”
Pollinator visitation and floral resource production in Black Sand plots, 2019.
Anthropogenic climate change is altering interactions among numerous species, including plants and pollinators. Plant-pollinator interactions, crucial for the persistence of most plant and many insect species, are threatened by climate change-driven phenological shifts. Phenological mismatches between plants and their pollinators may affect pollination services, and simulations indicated that these mismatches may reduce floral resources available to up to 50 percent of insect pollinator species. Although alpine plants rely heavily on vegetative reproduction, seedling recruitment and seed dispersal are likely to be important drivers of alpine community structure. Similarly, advanced flowering may expose plants to increased risk of frost damage and shifted soil moisture regimes; phenologically advanced plants will experience these environmental factors differently, which may alter their floral resource production. Some species of alpine plants on the Niwot Ridge have displayed advanced phenology under treatments of advanced snowmelt (Forrester, unpublished data). However, little is understood about how these differences in distribution and phenology affect floral resources, pollinator community composition, and plant fecundity. Here we strive to examine how changes in the timing of flowering and number of flowers produced by plants, driven by experimental changes to climatic conditions at individual sites impact pollinator communities. In summer 2019, we found that plots with advanced phenology experienced peaks in pollinator visitation rates and pollinator diversity earlier than plots with unmanipulated snowmelt. We expect this to be because of the advanced floral phenology of certain key species in these plots. We did not find evidence that plants with advanced phenology produce fewer floral resources.
Data from: Butterflies are not a robust bioindicator for assessing pollinator communities, but floral resources offer a promising way forward
<p>Monitoring pollinators is crucial for the evaluation of biodiversity and potential pollination services. Yet, efficiently monitoring multiple taxa over large areas can be costly. An alternative approach is using simple species bioindicators that represent the entire pollinator community. One of the requirements of a good bioindicator is that it can be easily identified to lower taxonomic levels and be sensitive to changes in habitat. This is the case for butterflies, a taxon for which many countries have a country-wide long-term monitoring scheme. We tested whether butterfly diversity can be used to predict diversity of bees and hoverflies both spatially and temporally. We surveyed 42 transects of the Dutch Butterfly Monitoring Scheme in 2020, to record species richness and abundance of butterflies, bees and hoverflies. We also recorded flower area and richness in the pollinator transects. To test whether pollinators with similar functional traits are more closely correlated than the entire pollinator community, we categorized bee and butterfly species according to their diet breadth (polyphagous vs. non-polyphagous), nitrogen-affinity (nitrophobous vs. nitrophilous larval resources) and body size. We used the same methods to test for temporal correlations over seven years for one site in Spain. Butterfly richness was not spatially correlated with bee richness (Pearson's r = 0.13), nor were the two taxa temporally correlated (Pearson's r = 0.02). Interestingly, hoverfly richness was spatially correlated with butterfly richness (Pearson's r = 0.43) and with bee richness (Pearson's r = 0.36) in the Netherlands and, hence, hoverflies might be slightly more suitable as a bioindicator of pollinator diversity in this area. Abundance of all three taxa showed no significant inter-correlation, except for correlations between diet specialist bees and butterflies (Pearson's r = 0.39). Importantly, all three taxa were strongly correlated with flower richness, but they varied in their preferences for host plant families. This is in line with 75% of the plant-pollinator studies finding significant positive relations. For monitoring schemes to be effective in informing better pollinator conservation, they should expand to include bees and hoverflies as well as simple indicators of habitat quality such as floral resources.</p>
Data from: emergence of structure in plant-pollinator networks: low floral resource constrains network specialisation
<p>Specialisation enhances the efficiency of plant-pollinator networks through the exchange of conspecific pollen transfer for floral resources. Floral resources form the currency of plant-pollinator interactions, but the understanding of how floral resources affect the structure of plant-pollinator networks remains modest. Previous theory predicts that optimally foraging animal species will specialise to improve resource acquisition under high resource availability. Although floral resource availability depends on both the plant production and animal consumption of the resources, previous work has assumed that production and availability to be equivalent. This potentially may have led to erroneous inferences on the effect of resource availability on specialisation. We develop a mutualistic Lotka-Volterra consumer-resource model to investigate the influence of floral resource availability on plant-pollinator network structure. The model incorporates animal adaptive foraging behaviour, floral resource dynamics, and density-dependent dynamics. Specialisation, nestedness and modularity of simulated networks generated from the model under a wide range of parameters were explained using the Generalised Linear Model. We found that the distinction between floral resource dynamics and plant density dynamics was necessary for partial specialisation of plant-pollinator networks. This is because floral resource dynamics constraint animal preference due to its depletion by animal species. Floral resource abundance had a positive effect on network specialisation, but animal density had a negative effect on network specialisation. Floral resource dynamics thus play key roles on the structure of plant-pollinator network, distinctive from plant species density dynamics.</p>
The FloRes Database: A floral resources trait database for pollinator habitat-assessment generated by a multistep workflow
<p><strong>Background</strong></p> <p>The decline of pollinating insects in agricultural landscapes proceeds due to intensive land use and the associated loss of habitat and food sources. The feeding of those insects depends on the spatial and temporal distribution of nectar and pollen as food resources. Hence, to protect insect biodiversity a spatio-temporal assessment of food quantity of their habitats is necessary. Therefore, sufficient data on traits of floral resources are required.</p> <p><strong>New information</strong></p> <p>Because floral resources' traits of plants are important to quantify food availability, we present two databases, the FloRes Database (Floral Resources Database) and the raw database, where FloRes was derived from. Both databases contain the plant traits (1) flowering period, (2) floral-unit density per day, (3) nectar volume per floral unit per day, (4) sugar content per floral unit, (5) sugar concentration in nectar, (6) pollen mass or volume per floral unit and per day, (7) protein content of pollen and (8) corolla depth. All traits are sampled from literature and online databases. The raw database consists of 702 specified plant species, 138 unspecified species 37 species (spec., sp), 22 species <em>pluralis </em>(spp) and for 79 only the genus was identified) and two species complexes (agg.). Those 842 taxa belong to 488 genera and 102 families. Finally, only 27 taxa have a complete set of traits, too less for a sufficient assessment of spatio-temporal availability of floral food resources.</p> <p>Because information of floral resources is scattered throughout many publications with different units, we also present our multistep workflow implemented in five consecutive R-scripts. The multistep workflow standardizes the trait units of the raw database to comparable entities with identical units and aggregates them on a reasonable taxonomic level into the second application database, the FloRes Database. Finally, the FloRes Database contains aggregated information of traits for 42 taxa and, when corolla depth is excluded, for 70 taxa.</p> <p>This is the first attempt to gather these eight traits from different literature sources in one database with a multistep workflow. The publication of the multistep workflow enables the users to extend the FloRes Database on their own demands with other literature data or newly gathered data to improve the quantification of food resources. Especially, the combination of pollen, nectar, and open flowers per square meter is, as far as we know, a novelty.</p> <p>The FloRes Database can be used to evaluate the quantity of food-resource habitats available for pollinators, e.g., to compare seed mixtures of agri-environmental measures, such as flower strips, considering flower phenology on a daily basis.</p>
Fig. 1 in Reducing mowing frequency increases floral resource and butterfly (Lepidoptera: Hesperioidea and Papilionoidea) abundance in managed roadside margins
Fig. 1. Effects of mowing treatment (no mowing, mowing every 6 wk, and mowing every 3 wk) on butterfly abundance and mortality. (a) Live butterflies were counted every other week and summed for the section replicates of each mowing treatment. (b) Dead butterflies were counted weekly and summed for the section replicates of each mowing treatment. (c) The relative butterfly mortalities were calculated every 3 wk as ΣDead / (ΣDead + ΣLive) for the section replicates of each mowing treatment. The gray box on each x-axis indicates when the interrupted 6 wk treatment (6* wk) was added due a mowing error in the 6 wk treatment sections in Site 2. The 6* wk treatment was split from the 6 wk treatment for the whole time period in all sites for longitudinal reasons, i.e., to avoid an unnatural drop in the 6 wk treatment afer the mowing error. The 6* wk treatment was split afer the mowing error in Site 2 in the statistical analysis. Black vertical lines represent the knots that separated the data into spline sections for the statistical analyses.
Dataset _ Bombus pauloensis telemetry: Spatio-temporal use of the environment and floral resources.
<p>These data includes the GPS points collected from the tracked bees (<em>Bombus pauloensis</em> queens) that were used in the analysis of the home ranges and kernal density, data were usesd in the the MCP and the LUC analysis and pollen collected from the queens.</p>
Data from: Fitness costs and benefits of a non-native floral resource for subalpine solitary bees
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The FloRes Database: A floral resources trait database for pollinator habitat-assessment generated by a multistep workflow
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Data from: Emergence of structure in plant-pollinator networks: Low floral resource constrains network specialisation
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Data from: Effect of the combination floral and diet resources on development of big-eyed bug Geocoris ochropterus (Fieber) (Hemiptera: Geocoridae) at different temperature
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Dryness, wetness and temporary flooding reduce floral resources of plant communities with adverse consequences for pollinator attraction
1. Climate change alters precipitation regimes worldwide and is regarded as a major threat for pollinators and pollination services. Yet, not much is known on how wetter as well as drier conditions affect food resources for pollinators and pollinator attraction in a multi-species community context. It is unclear how community shifts under changed hydrological conditions might affect pollinators. 2. This mesocosm study addresses existing research gaps by investigating effects of drought, wetness and temporary flooding on floral resources and pollinator attraction within a plant community, initially including nine insect- and six wind-pollinated species. Floral resources were assessed over three growing seasons monitoring community descriptors (percentage of herbs and herbaceous species richness, presence of flowering insect-pollinated individuals), floral traits (flower height, size and weight, floral sugar content of one key species) and proxies for plant fitness (pollinator attraction, seed and flower weight of one key species). 3. Wetness and especially dryness decreased the species richness and biomass proportion of insect-pollinated herbaceous species and flowering herbaceous plant individuals occurred less frequently. Permanent wetness decreased the floral sugar content of the key species Trifolium pratense. Consequently, wet, temporary flooded and especially dry communities were visited by pollinators less often, and active pollinators spent less time within wet and flooded communities, while not at all visiting dry communities. Seed and flower weight of the obligate xenogamous T. pratense in flooded and dry communities was decreased, indicating negative consequences for plant fitness caused by a lack of pollination. 4. Synthesis: While dryness had negative effects for floral resources when looking at both, community descriptors and floral traits, negative effects of wetness and temporary flooding were mostly caused by a decrease of insect-pollinated herbaceous species. The study thus indicates that shifts in plant community composition are decisive for a predictive understanding of plant-pollinator interactions under environmental change, but have been neglected in past research. Changing precipitation patterns will adversely affect floral resources and pollinator attraction in agriculturally used temperate grassland, which might have widespread negative consequences for pollination services and food security in coming decades.
Floral resource availability and honeybee flower visitations in Oslo, Norway
<p>Urban green infrastructure can provide important habitats for pollinators and support urban ecosystem services. Therefore, these areas must be managed to maximize biodiversity and density of pollinating insects. We used DNA metabarcoding to study honeybee pollen resource use over time and space in the city of Oslo, Norway, and to assess the role of green infrastructure as a resource for pollinators and the services they generate. Urban honeybees used diverse pollen resources throughout their active season. There was considerable seasonal turnover in pollen resource use that reflected flowering phenology. Non-native plants (including invasive species) were an important resource early in the season but were replaced by native plants later in the season. Hive location was not strongly correlated with resource use, likely indicating effective long-distance foraging in the fragmented urban landscape. However, flower visitation rates and floral resource density in public urban green spaces were coupled with pollen use. Honeybees collected pollen from a small number of preferred species but also visited other species, likely for nectar. To preserve pollinator services, urban planning should consider flower resource management, with particular focus on planting native species that can act as early season resources for bees. Public campaigns and other incentive mechanisms to promote the cultivation of native plants that are resources for pollinators and the protection of urban semi-natural habitats have the potential to enhance the value of green infrastructure to support urban pollinators and pollination services.</p>
Seed mix design and floral resources drive multi-trophic interactions in prairie restoration
<ol> <li>Ecological restoration often targets plant community recovery, but restoration success may depend on the recovery of a complex web of biotic interactions to maintain biodiversity and promote ecosystem services. Specifically, management that drives resource availability, such as seeding richness and provenance, may alter species interactions across multiple trophic levels. Using experimentally seeded prairies, we examine three key groups – plants, pollinators, and goldenrod crab spiders (<em>Misumena vatia</em>, predators of pollinators) – to understand the effects of species richness and admixture seed sourcing of restoration seed mixtures on multi-trophic interactions.</li> <li>Working with prairie plants, we experimentally manipulated seed mix richness and the number of seed source regions (single-source region or admixture seed sourcing). In each experimental prairie, we surveyed floral abundance and richness, pollinator visitation, and plant-<em>M. vatia</em> interactions.</li> <li>A high-richness seed mix increased floral abundance when seeds were sourced from a single geographic region, and floral abundance strongly increased pollinator visitation, <em>M. vatia</em> abundance, and prey capture. Seeding richness and admixture seed sourcing of the seed mixture did not affect floral species richness, but floral species richness increased pollinator visitation.</li> <li>Pollinators interacted with different floral communities across seeding treatments, indicating a shift in visited floral species with restoration practices.</li> <li> <em>Synthesis and applications</em>. Long-term success in prairie restoration requires the restoration of plant-arthropod interactions. We provide evidence that seed mix richness and admixture seed sourcing affect arthropod floral associations, but effective restoration of plant-arthropod interactions should consider total floral resource availability. Incorporating a food web perspective in restoration will strengthen approaches to whole ecosystem restoration.</li> </ol>
Data from: On-site floral resources and surrounding landscape characteristics impact pollinator biodiversity at solar parks
<p>There is increasing land use change for solar parks and growing recognition that they could be used to support insect pollinators. However, understanding of pollinator response to solar park developments is limited and empirical data are lacking.</p> <p>We combine field observations with landcover data to quantify the impact of on-site floral resources and surrounding landscape characteristics on solar park pollinator abundance and species richness. We surveyed pollinators and flowering plants at 15 solar parks across England in 2021, used a landcover map to assess the surrounding high-quality habitat and aerial imagery to measure woody linear features (hedgerows, woodland edges and lines of trees).</p> <p>In total, 1,397 pollinators were recorded, including 899 butterflies (64%), 171 hoverflies (12%), 161 bumble bees (12%), 157 moths (11%) and nine honeybees (< 1%). At least 30 pollinator species were observed, the majority of which were common, generalist species.</p> <p>Pollinator biodiversity varied between solar parks and was explained by a combination of on-site floral resources and surrounding landscape characteristics. Floral species richness was the most influential on-site characteristic and woody linear feature density generally had a greater impact than the cover of surrounding high-quality habitats, although drivers differed by pollinator group.</p> <p>Our findings suggest that a range of factors affect pollinator biodiversity at solar parks, but maximising floral resources within a park through appropriate management actions may be the most achievable way to support most pollinator groups, especially where solar parks are located in resource-poor, disconnected landscapes.</p>
Behavioural and morphological traits influence sex-specific floral resource use by hummingbirds
<p>Research on resource partitioning in plant-pollinator mutualistic systems is mainly concentrated at the levels of species and communities, whereas differences between males and females are typically ignored. Nevertheless, pollinators often show large sexual differences in behaviour and morphology, which may lead to sex-specific patterns of resource use with the potential to differentially affect plant reproduction and diversification. We investigated variation in behavioural and morphological traits between sexes of hummingbird species as potential mechanisms underlying sex-specific flower resource use in ecological communities. To do so, we compiled a dataset of plant-hummingbird interactions based on pollen loads for 31 hummingbird species from 13 localities across the Americas, complemented by data on territorial behaviour (territorial or nonterritorial) and morphological traits (bill length, bill curvature, wing length and body mass). We assessed the extent of intersexual differences in niche breadth and niche overlap in floral resource use across hummingbird species. Then, we tested whether floral niche breadth and overlap between sexes are associated with sexual dimorphism in behavioural or morphological traits of hummingbird species, while accounting for evolutionary relatedness among the species. We found striking differences in patterns of floral resource use between sex. Females had a broader floral niche breadth and were more dissimilar in the plant species visited with respect to males of the same species, resulting in a high level of resource partitioning between sexes. We found that both territoriality and morphological traits were related to sex-specific resource use by hummingbird species. Notably, niche overlap between sexes was greater for territorial than nonterritorial species, and moreover, niche overlap was negatively associated with sexual dimorphism in bill curvature across hummingbird species. These results reveal the importance of behavioural and morphological traits of hummingbird species in sex-specific resource use and that resource partitioning by sex is likely to be an important mechanism to reduce intersexual competition in hummingbirds. These findings highlight the need for better understanding the putative role of intersexual variation in shaping patterns of interactions and plant reproduction in ecological communities.</p>
Close to the edge: Spatial variation in plant diversity, biomass and floral resources in conventional and agri-environment cereal fields
<p>Non-crop (segetal) plants in arable systems are commonly perceived simply as "weeds", i.e. harmful at worst and undesirable at best. The increase in management intensity in European arable systems has vastly reduced the populations of all but the most disturbance-tolerant plant species, negatively impacting the whole agricultural food web. In recent years, efforts have been made to promote agricultural biodiversity through measures such as flower strips and unsprayed field margins. However, studies of their impacts on the arable flora have rarely considered their spatial variation within the crop field. We investigated the spatial distribution of vascular plant species richness and their contribution to the food web via biomass and flower units in conventional and agri-environment cereal fields in six regions of Germany. We studied two types of in-crop measures (extensive cereals without pesticides or fertiliser, and with or without intercropping with flowering species) and one adjacent measure (neighbouring flower strip), recording at 1 m intervals from the field edge to interior. These results were then extrapolated to illustrate the effects of these measures on resource provision at the field scale. Species richness and plant biomass dropped off sharply after the first metre in the conventional treatments, regardless of the adjacent habitat. The "extensive" treatments maintained a much higher level of diversity and resource provision into the field interior. At the field level, this can mean more than sixty-fold difference in provision of flowering resources between conventional management (1900 flower units/ha) and agri-environment measures (127,000 units/ha for extensive cereals).</p> <p><em>Synthesis and applications:</em></p> <p>The strong edge effects we found in conventional cultivation support the premise that reducing field sizes could play a role in promoting in-crop biodiversity. However, incorporating extensive field margins as an agri-environment measure would be more efficient at maximising diversity of generalists whilst maintaining high yields.</p>
Data from: Seasonality of floral resources in relation to bee activity in agroecosystems
<p>The contribution of wild insects to crop pollination is becoming increasingly important as global demand for crops dependent on animal pollination increases. If wild insect populations are to persist in agricultural landscapes, there must be sufficient resources over time and space. The temporal, within‐season component of floral resource availability has rarely been investigated, despite growing recognition of its likely importance for pollinator populations. Here, we examined the visitation rates of common bee genera and the spatiotemporal availability of floral resources in agroecosystems over one season to determine whether local wild bee activity was limited by landscape floral resource abundance, and if so, whether it was limited by the present or past abundance of landscape floral resources. Visitation rates and landscape floral resources were measured in 27 agricultural sites in Ontario and Québec, Canada, across four time periods and three spatial scales. Floral resources were determined based on species‐specific floral volume measurements, which we found to be highly correlated with published measurements of nectar sugar mass and pollen volume. Total floral volume at varying spatial scales predicted visits for commonly observed bee genera. We found <i>Lasioglossum</i> and <i>Halictus</i> visits were highest in landscapes that provided either a stable or increasing amount of floral resources over the season. <i>Andrena</i> visits were highest in landscapes with high floral resources at the start of the season, and <i>Bombus</i> visits appeared to be positively related to greater cumulative seasonal abundance of floral resources. These findings together suggest the importance of early‐season floral resources to bees. <i>Megachile</i> visits were negatively associated with the present abundance of floral resources, perhaps reflecting pollinator movement or dilution. Our research provides insight into how seasonal fluctuations in floral resources affect bee activity and how life history traits of bee genera influence their responses to food availability within agroecosystems.</p>
Data from: Temporal change in floral availability leads to periods of resource limitation and affects diet specificity in a generalist pollinator
<p class="Default"><span>Generalist species are core components of ecological networks and crucial for the maintenance of biodiversity. Generalised species and networks are expected to be more resilient, therefore understanding the dynamics of specialisation and generalisation in ecological networks is a key focus in a time of rapid global climate change. Whilst diet generalisation is frequently studied, our understanding of how it changes over time is limited. We explore temporal variation in diet specificity in the honeybee (<em>Apis mellifera</em>), using pollen DNA metabarcoding of honey samples, through the foraging season, over two years. We find that overall, honeybees are generalists that visit a wide range of plants, but there is temporal variation in the degree of specialisation. Temporal specialisation of honeybee colonies corresponds to periods of resource limitation, identified as a lack of honey stores. Honeybees experience a lack of preferred resources in June when switching from flowering trees in spring to shrubs and herbs in summer. Investigating temporal patterns in specialisation can identify periods of resource limitation that may lead to species and network vulnerability. Diet specificity must therefore be explored at different temporal scales in order to fully understand species and network stability in the face of ecological change.</span></p>
Close to the edge: Spatial variation in plant diversity, biomass and floral resources in conventional and agri-environment cereal fields
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Data from: Temporal change in floral availability leads to periods of resource limitation and affects diet specificity in a generalist pollinator
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