Pollinator individual‐based networks reveal the specialized plant–pollinator mutualism in two biodiverse communities

Abstract

The interactions between plants and their pollinators are considered to be one of the fundamental drivers of angiosperm diversity (Stebbins, 1970). The specialization of the pollination system is important for a successful pollination, since a high level of specialization would assure conspecific pollen transfers within plant species and a high energy intake rate of pollinators (Johnson & Steiner, 2000). Local populations of entomophilous plant species would benefit from specializing foraging bouts of pollinator individuals in a short time with no temporal changes caused by adjacent factors. Reducing the interspecific pollen transfer would ensure seed production via outcrossing and species integrity by reducing pollen flows among multiple species (Morales &

The effects of changes in flowering plant composition caused by nitrogen and phosphorus enrichment on plant–pollinator interactions in a Tibetan alpine grassland

“…For example, we found that the flowers of D. sophia and Angelica nitida could attract more than ten pollinator species. Additionally, our results showed that the main pollinator species were flies, bees, and butterflies (Figure 2), which are generalized pollinators that can visit many flowering plants in alpine grasslands (Wang et al, 2021). Therefore, we could not determine any changes in pollinator diversity and abundance due to P and N addition (Burkle and Irwin, 2009;Villa-Galaviz et al, 2021).…”

“… Burkle and Irwin (2009) also found that N addition did not affect the richness of pollinator communities. A possible explanation might be that most of the remaining flowering plant species, such as Asteraceae, Ranunculaceae, and Rosaceae, had an open morphology with radially symmetrical flowers in the nutrient-addition plots ( Figure 2 and Supplementary Table 1 ), which could attract many generalized pollinator species to visit these flowering plants ( Duan et al, 2007 ; Zhang et al, 2015 ; Wang et al, 2021 ). For example, we found that the flowers of D. sophia and Angelica nitida could attract more than ten pollinator species.…”

“…The plant community mainly consists of grasses and forbs ( Figure 1B ). The flowering plant species are mainly Gentiana straminea , Gentiana aristata , Morina kokonorica , Angelica nitida , and Dasiphora fruticosa ( Liu et al, 2019 ), which are primarily pollinated by insects such as honey bees, bumble bees, butterflies and flies ( Zhang et al, 2015 ; Wang et al, 2021 ).…”

Using individual‐based trait frequency distributions to forecast plant‐pollinator network responses to environmental change

“…This form of network representation shows levels of generalism or specialism for each species but effectively assumes similar interaction preferences per individual within a given species. However, individuals within species can vary in their dietary breadth (Tur et al, 2014;Wang et al, 2021), level of 'generalism' (Arroyo-Correa et al, 2023) and interaction plasticity (Araújo et al, 2008 andTinker et al, 2012 for food web examples). As a result, in individual-level networks, individuals within the same module may not necessarily be of the same species (in Tur et al, 2015, this is due to phenology).…”

Downscaling mutualistic networks from species to individuals reveals consistent interaction niches and roles within plant populations

“…Network structure may not be consistent across hierarchical scales of organization (Tur et al 2014, Wang et al 2021). To begin with, the similarity in the set of partners available to individuals of the same species will be higher than that to different species.…”