Co-flowering plant species commonly share flower visitors, and thus have the potential to influence each other's pollination. In this study we analysed 750 quantitative plant-pollinator networks from 28 studies representing diverse biomes worldwide. We show that the potential for one plant species to influence another indirectly via shared pollinators was greater for plants whose resources were more abundant (higher floral unit number and nectar sugar content) and more accessible. The potential indirect influence was also stronger between phylogenetically closer plant species and was independent of plant geographic origin (native vs. non-native). The positive effect of nectar sugar content and phylogenetic proximity was much more accentuated for bees than for other groups. Consequently, the impact of these factors depends on the pollination mode of plants, e.g. bee or fly pollinated. Our findings may help predict which plant species have the greatest importance in the functioning of plant-pollination networks.
Standardized tools are needed to identify and prioritize the most harmful non-native species (NNS). A plethora of assessment protocols have been developed to evaluate the current and potential impacts of non-native species, but consistency among them has received limited attention. To estimate the consistency across impact assessment protocols, 89 specialists in biological invasions used 11 protocols to screen 57 NNS (2614 assessments). We tested if the consistency in the impact scoring across assessors, quantified as the coefficient of variation (CV), was dependent on the characteristics of the protocol, the taxonomic group and the expertise of the assessor. Mean CV across assessors was 40%, with a maximum of 223%. CV was lower for protocols with a low number of score levels, which demanded high levels of expertise, and when the assessors had greater expertise on the assessed species. The similarity among protocols with respect to the final scores was higher when the protocols considered the same impact types. We conclude that all protocols led to considerable inconsistency among assessors. In order to improve consistency, we highlight the importance of selecting assessors with high expertise, providing clear guidelines and adequate training but also deriving final decisions collaboratively by consensus.
Summary1. Alterations in land use and biological invasions are two major components of global change that threaten biodiversity. There is high concern about their impact on pollinators and the pollination services they provide. However, the growing literature shows different, even contradictory results. 2. We present a global meta-analysis of 58 publications reporting 143 studies (37 on landscape alteration and 21 on biological invasions) to assess the extent to which these components affect pollinators, and whether taxonomic and ecosystem-type differences in pollinator responses occur. We also quantified which component of landscape alteration had the largest effect on pollinators and assessed whether animal invasions differ from plant invasions in their effect on native pollinators. 3. Habitat alteration and invasions affected pollinators to the same magnitude by decreasing visitation rates. Vertebrates in altered landscapes and insects (excluding bees) in invaded areas were the most affected pollinator taxa. 4. Pollinator abundance was more reduced in altered forest ecosystems than in altered grasslands; while the reverse pattern was found for pollinator richness. However, the response of pollinators to invasions was independent of ecosystem type. 5. Disturbance of the surrounding matrix was more important in decreasing pollinator visitation rates than fragment size. 6. Invasive animals seemed to have a more consistent negative effect on visitation rates than invasive plants. 7. Synthesis. Our study highlights that different components of global change have similar negative outcomes on pollination patterns, but that responses of pollinators vary among taxa and ecosystem types, as well as the attributes of landscape alteration considered and whether the invader is an animal or a plant.
Summary Introduced entomophilous non‐native plants usually become well integrated into the diet of generalist pollinators. This integration can affect the entire recipient plant–pollinator network. Effects vary from facilitative to competitive, and understanding the factors that govern such variability is one of the fundamental goals in invasion ecology. Species traits determine the linking patterns between plant and pollinator species. Therefore, trait similarity among plants or among pollinators might modulate how they affect each other. We conducted a flower removal experiment to investigate the effects of the non‐native entomophilous legume Hedysarum coronarium on the pollination patterns of a Mediterranean shrubland plant–pollinator network. Specifically, we explored whether effects were influenced by similarity with the resident plant species in flower morphology (papilionate vs. non‐papilionate), and whether effects on the pollinator community were influenced by similarity in functional group with its main visitor species (bees vs. non‐bees). In addition, we explored whether Hedysarum had an effect on the identity of interactions. For this purpose, we calculated the interaction rewiring, that is the number of plant–pollinator interactions that were gained or lost after invasion. Hedysarum was well integrated into the diet of 15 generalist pollinators having the honeybee as its main visitor species. Such integration did not affect visitation rates, normalized degree (i.e. proportion of pollinators they are visited by) nor niche overlap (i.e. proportion of plant species they share pollinators with) of plants, irrespective of their flower morphology. Only the proportion of honeybee visits to resident plants decreased with invasion. On the other hand, Hedysarum reduced visitation rates and niche overlap of pollinators, mainly those of bee species. Finally, we observed that changes in the foraging behaviour of the honeybee were positively associated with the interaction rewiring involving the rest (92 taxa) of pollinators. In conclusion, pollinators show a plastic use of floral resources, responding to the presence of non‐native plants. When the non‐native attracts highly competitive pollinators such as the honeybee, plasticity is especially significant in pollinators that are functionally close to that competitive pollinator. The result is an interaction rewiring, probably due to pollinators avoiding competition with the honeybee. Though this plasticity might not quantitatively affect the pollination of plants, consequences on their reproduction and the functioning of the network can derive from the interaction rewiring. A http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.12712/suppinfo is available for this article.
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