Low functional diversity promotes niche changes in natural island pollinator communities.

ABSTRACT: Functional diversity loss among pollinators has rapidly progressed across the globe and is expected to influence plant-pollinator interactions in natural communities. Although recent findings suggest that the disappearance of a certain pollinator functional group may cause niche expansions and/or shifts in other groups, no study has examined this prediction in natural communities with high plant and pollinator diversities. By comparing coastal pollination networks on continental and oceanic islands, we examined how community-level flower visit patterns are influenced by the relative biomass of long-tongued pollinators (RBLP). We found that RBLP significantly correlated with pollinator functional diversity and was lower in oceanic than in continental islands. Pollinator niches shifted with

SUBMITTER: Hiraiwa MK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5247496 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature