Plant evolution can mediate negative effects from honey bees on wild pollinators.

ABSTRACT: Pollinators are introduced to agroecosystems to provide pollination services. Introductions of managed pollinators often promote ecosystem services, but it remains largely unknown whether they also affect evolutionary mutualisms between wild pollinators and plants.Here, we developed a model to assess effects of managed honey bees on mutualisms between plants and wild pollinators. Our model tracked how interactions among wild pollinators and honey bees affected pollinator and plant populations.We show that when managed honey bees have a competitive advantage over wild pollinators, or a greater carrying capacity, the honey bees displace the wild pollinator. This leads to reduced plant density because plants benefit less by visits from honey bees than wild pollinators that coevolved with the

SUBMITTER: Milner JRD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7246215 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature