Pollinator importance networks illustrate the crucial value of bees in a highly speciose plant community.

ABSTRACT: Accurate predictions of pollination service delivery require a comprehensive understanding of the interactions between plants and flower visitors. To improve measurements of pollinator performance underlying such predictions, we surveyed visitation frequency, pollinator effectiveness (pollen deposition ability) and pollinator importance (the product of visitation frequency and effectiveness) of flower visitors in a diverse Mediterranean flower meadow. With these data we constructed the largest pollinator importance network to date and compared it with the corresponding visitation network to estimate the specialisation of the community with greater precision. Visitation frequencies at the community level were positively correlated with the amount of pollen deposited during individual visits

SUBMITTER: Ballantyne G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5566368 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature