Biodiversity ensures plant–pollinator phenological synchrony against climate change

Abstract

Climate change has the potential to alter the phenological synchrony between interacting mutualists, such as plants and their pollinators. However, high levels of biodiversity might buffer the negative effects of species-specific phenological shifts and maintain synchrony at the community level, as predicted by the biodiversity insurance hypothesis. Here, we explore how biodiversity might enhance and stabilise phenological synchrony between a valuable crop, apple and its native pollinators. We combine 46 years of data on apple flowering phenology with historical records of bee pollinators over the same period. When the key apple pollinators are considered altogether, we found extensive synchrony between bee activity and apple peak bloom due to complementarity among bee species' activity periods, and also a stable trend over time due to differential responses to warming climate among bee species. A simulation model confirms that high biodiversity levels can ensure plant-pollinator phenological synchrony and thus pollination function.

Habitat restoration promotes pollinator persistence and colonization in intensively managed agriculture

“…Theoretical work has also predicted that diverse communities provide more consistent levels of pollination services than less diverse communities, because these services are less sensitive to temporal fluctuations in composition (e.g., the ''portfolio effect'' [Tilman et al 1998] and the ''biodiversity insurance hypothesis'' [Lawton and Brown 1993]). The few empirical studies that have been conducted on pollination services support these theoretical predictions (Klein et al 2003, SteffanDewenter et al 2006, Bartomeus et al 2013. Our results indicate that restoration increases pollinator diversity by enhancing species colonization and persistence between seasons and thus may lead to communities that provide more stable pollination services.…”

Climatic Risk and Distribution Atlas of European Bumblebees

“…Kudo & Ida, 2013;Petanidou et al, 2014), even if several empirical studies suggest that the large plant and insect biodiversity could mitigate the expected dramatic consequences (e.g. Bartomeus et al, 2011Bartomeus et al, , 2013bForrest & Thomson, 2011;Iler et al, 2013). Such changes in pollinator communities may not only affect wild plants but can also impact important agricultural crops (e.g.…”

Plantas, polinizadores e algumas articulações da biologia da polinização com a teoria ecológica

“…Como na região temperada, onde foi realizado o estudo, as abelhas apresentam complementaridade fenológica no tempo de emergência, os autores previram que a maior riqueza de abelhas aumentaria o tempo em que alguma delas estaria disponível para polinizar, diminuindo o risco de flores de macieira com fenologia deslocada por aquecimento global não serem polinizadas. Os autores encontraram uma mudança fenológica grande no período de floração das macieiras ao longo do tempo de estudo, sendo que, conforme esperado, essa mudança foi melhor tamponada nos locais de maior diversidade de abelhas (Bartomeus et al 2013). …”