Community structure contributes to ecosystem persistence and stability. To understand the mechanisms underlying pollination and community stability of natural areas in a human influenced landscape, a better understanding of the interaction patterns between plants and pollinators in disturbed landscapes is needed. The Northern Great Plains still retain extensive tracts of remnant temperate grassland habitat within a matrix of varying land-uses. We used a network-based approach to quantify how temperate grassland attributes and landscape heterogeneity influence plant-pollinator community structure in natural habitats. We also quantified pollinator diversity and floral diversity to assess the functional role of temperate grassland attributes and the surrounding landscape on the composition of the plant-pollinator communities in natural habitats. We found that the amount of local nectar sugar and increased proportions of certain land-uses contribute to pollinator diversity that in turn influences the structure of interactions between plants and pollinators. Understanding the factors contributing to plant-pollinator network structure can guide management decisions to support resilient plant-pollinator communities and conserve the stability of pollination services.

Botanical gardens have contributed to plant conservation through the maintenance of both living and preserved plant specimens for decades. However, there is still a large gap in the literature with regards to understanding the potential conservation value botanical gardens could provide for local pollinators. We investigated how plant-pollinator community structure and diversity may differ between botanical gardens and native habitats by sampling and comparing between two environments: a restored native grassland patch within a local botanical garden and fifteen native, remnant temperate grassland sites in the Northern Great Plains. We found pollinator diversity within the restored native grassland patch was greater than 55% of total remnant temperate grassland transects throughout the entire flowering season, while plant diversity and network community metrics between the two environments remained similar throughout, except that remnant prairies have more links (higher connectance) with pollinators than the garden patch. Overall, our findings demonstrate the promising role restored native grassland patches in botanical gardens could play as reservoirs for local pollinator communities by supporting plant-pollinator interactions comparable to those found in native habitat remnants in the same region.

Using a mechanistic eco-evolutionary trait-based neighborhood-model, we quantify the impact of mutations on spatial interactions to better understand the potential effect of niche evolution through mutations on the population dynamics of Arabidopsis thaliana. We use 100 twenty-fifth generation mutation accumulation (MA) lines (genotypes) derived from one founder genotype to study mutational effects on neighbor responses in a field experiment. We created individual-based maps (15,000 individuals), including phenotypic variation, to quantify mutational effects within genotypes versus between genotypes on reproduction and survival. At small-scale, survival is enhanced but reproduction is decreased when a genotype is surrounded by different genotypes. At large-scale, seed set is facilitated by different genotypes while the same genotype has either no effect or negative effects. Mutations may provide a mechanism for plants to quickly evolve niches and may drive competition, facilitation and selection with profound consequences for future population and community dynamics.