Plant species dominance increases pollination complementarity and plant reproductive function

Stavert, Jamie R.; Bartomeus, Ignasi; Beggs, Jacqueline R.; Gaskett, Anne C.; Pattemore, David E.

doi:10.1002/ecy.2749

Cited by 24 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 90 publications

(167 reference statements)

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“…This conclusion was corroborated by the increased seed set of high-dependence species in ungrazed meadows. Stavert et al (2019) experimentally showed that the complementarity in pollinator use among plant species increased seed production of plants. Therefore, the higher visitation rate to high-dependence plants and specificity of pollinators in the ungrazed meadows appeared to improve plant reproductive performance.…”

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confidence: 99%

Restoration of Degraded Alpine Meadows Improves Pollination Network Robustness and Function in the Tibetan Plateau

Gao

Wang

et al. 2021

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Ecological restoration is widely used to mitigate the negative impacts of anthropogenic activities. There is an increasing demand to identify suitable restoration management strategies for specific habitat and disturbance types to restore interactions between organisms of degraded habitats, such as pollination. In the Tibetan Plateau, alpine meadows have suffered severe degradation due to overgrazing and climate change. Protecting vegetation by fencing during the growing season is a widely applied management regime for restoration of degraded grasslands in this region. Here, we investigated the effect of this restoration strategy on plant–pollinator communities and plant reproduction in the eastern Tibetan Plateau. We collected interaction and seed set data monthly across three grazed (grazed all year) and three ungrazed (fenced during growing season) alpine meadows in growing seasons of two consecutive years. We found ungrazed meadows produced more flowers and attracted more pollinator visits. Many common network metrics, such as nestedness, connectance, network specialization, and modularity, did not differ between grazing treatments. However, plants in ungrazed meadows were more robust to secondary species extinction than those in grazed meadows. The observed changes in the networks corresponded with higher seed set of plants that rely on pollinators for reproduction. Our results indicate that protection from grazing in growing seasons improves pollination network stability and function and thus is a viable restoration approach for degraded meadows.

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confidence: 99%

Restoration of Degraded Alpine Meadows Improves Pollination Network Robustness and Function in the Tibetan Plateau

Gao

Wang

et al. 2021

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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“…Unlike G. chungtienensis , there was no evidence of a change in the number of pollen grains deposited on A. ruprestris flowers along the Euphorbia dominance gradient. This lack of change suggests that although total visitation of this species might be reduced in high Euphorbia dominant communities, pollen deposition is maintained by specialist pollinators which show higher flower constancy (Stavert et al., 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of a native dominant plant, Euphorbia jolkinii, on plant–flower visitor networks and pollen deposition on stigmas of co‐flowering species in subalpine meadows of Shangri‐La, SW China

et al. 2021

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Anthropogenic activity can modify the distribution of species abundance in a community leading to the appearance of new dominant species. While many studies report that an alien plant species which becomes increasingly dominant can change species composition, plant–pollinator network structure and the reproductive output of native plant species, much less is known about native plant species which become dominant in their communities. Euphorbia jolkinii Boissier (Euphorbia, hereafter) has become a dominant native plant in the over‐grazed meadows of Shangri‐La, SW China. During the flowering season of Euphorbia and over 2 years, we quantified the impact of Euphorbia on plant richness and flower visitor richness in 12 subalpine meadows along a gradient of Euphorbia dominance. We also evaluated the floral preferences of flower visitors, interaction evenness of plant–flower visitor networks and the deposition of pollen on the stigmas of two co‐flowering plant species (Gentiana chungtienensis and Anemone rupestris) in each meadow. The species richness of flower visitors to non‐Euphorbia plants was negatively correlated with Euphorbia dominance. As the proportion of Euphorbia increases, flower visitors to Euphorbia decreased, while flower visitors to other co‐flowering plants increased. Interaction evenness decreased as the proportion of Euphorbia increased. Furthermore, the conspecific pollen deposition of one of the two co‐flowering plant species studied, G. chungtienensis, decreased as the proportion of Euphorbia increased. Synthesis. There appears to be little substantive difference between the impact of a newly dominant native plant and the impacts reported for many alien plants on native plant–pollinator communities. This lack of difference suggests that dominance, in addition to plant origin (alien vs. native), could play an important role in influencing the structure and functioning of native communities. This finding has considerable implications for restoration ecology. Thus, communities where natural dominance order has been changed due to anthropogenic activity may not be considered a problem as all the species are native—in reality though, they may be as damaged as communities invaded by alien species.

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“…Ratzke et al, 2020;Ushio, 2020;Wootton & Emmerson, 2005). For example, complementarity among species causes positive relationships such as between plant diversity and productivity or between pollinators and pollination (Kunz et al, 2019;Stavert et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Species diversity and biological trait function: Effectiveness of ant–plant mutualism decreases as ant species diversity increases

2021

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1. One of the major concerns of ecological and evolutionary research is the prediction of community function in relation to the degree of biodiversity. To clarify the relationship between biodiversity and the expression of plant defence traits, we investigated ant-plant defensive mutualism in the pioneer plant Mallotus japonicus at several sites across Japan. The plant bears ant-attracting extrafloral nectar (EFN) and food bodies (FBs) as indirect defence traits.2. To reveal variations in ant-plant interactions in the field, we measured species richness of nectar-feeding ants and interaction strength between each ant species and the plant (visiting frequency of each ant species to the plant). We also investigated the expression of EFNs and FBs in natural plant populations at the study sites. To assess the defensive quality of each ant species, we then experimentally estimated the aggressiveness of the dominant ant species. To examine the link between ant species richness and the defensive function of ants, we conducted an ant-exclusion experiment and a common garden experiment to clarify whether the defence efficacy of ants varied in relation to ant species richness.3. Ant species richness differed among the study sites. We found negative relationships between ant species richness and the mean interaction strength of ant species, the interaction strength of aggressive ant species and the number of EFNs per leaf. The effectiveness of indirect defence by ants was poor at sites where ant species richness was high. When cultivated in the same environment, plants from sites with low ant species richness developed a larger number of EFNs per leaf than those from sites with high ant species richness. 4. Our results suggest that facultative ant-plant defensive mutualism is weakened at sites where ant species richness is high, resulting in a decrease in the number of EFNs per leaf. Such a link between species richness and an indirect trait function may help us to understand the evolutionary patterns of various species traits in complex biological communities.

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Plant species dominance increases pollination complementarity and plant reproductive function

Cited by 24 publications

References 90 publications

Restoration of Degraded Alpine Meadows Improves Pollination Network Robustness and Function in the Tibetan Plateau

Restoration of Degraded Alpine Meadows Improves Pollination Network Robustness and Function in the Tibetan Plateau

The impact of a native dominant plant, Euphorbia jolkinii, on plant–flower visitor networks and pollen deposition on stigmas of co‐flowering species in subalpine meadows of Shangri‐La, SW China

Species diversity and biological trait function: Effectiveness of ant–plant mutualism decreases as ant species diversity increases

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