Pollen metabarcoding reveals a broad diversity of plant sources available to farmland flower visitors near tropical montane forest.

ABSTRACT: Despite the widely recognized role of pollinators in ecosystem services, we currently have a poor understanding of the contribution of Natural Protected Areas neighboring agricultural landscapes to crop pollinator diversity and plant-pollinator interactions. Here, we conducted monthly surveys over a period of one year to study the diversity of insect visitors in dominant fruit crops-avocado, plum, apple, and blackberry-and used pollen DNA metabarcoding to characterize the community of plant sources in and around low-intensive farmland bordered by protected montane forest in Costa Rica. We found that crops and native plants had distinct communities of flower visitors, suggesting the presence of fine-scale habitat differences. DNA metabarcoding coupled with a custom-built reference database,

SUBMITTER: Montero BK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11745891 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature