Functional Diversity of Plant–Pollinator Interaction Webs Enhances the Persistence of Plant Communities

By Colin Fontaine, I. Dajoz, J. Mériguet, Michel Loreau. PLoS Biology, 2005

694 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Pollination is exclusively or mainly animal mediated for 70% to 90% of angiosperm species. Thus, pollinators provide an essential ecosystem service to humankind. However, the impact of human-induced biodiversity loss on the functioning of plant–pollinator interactions has not been tested experimentally. To understand how plant communities respond to diversity changes in their pollinating fauna, we manipulated the functional diversity of both plants and pollinators under natural conditions. Increasing the functional diversity of both plants and pollinators led to the recruitment of more diverse plant communities. After two years the plant communities pollinated by the most functionally diverse pollinator assemblage contained about 50% more plant species than did plant communities pollinated by less-diverse pollinator assemblages. Moreover, the positive effect of functional diversity was explained by a complementarity between functional groups of pollinators and plants. Thus, the functional diversity of pollination networks may be critical to ecosystem sustainability.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Nature and Landscape Conservation, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/57fddcbf0d6ca7d3b51ba189196798f7d93dad92

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Citations in the corpus

Trait matching of flower visitors and crops predicts fruit set better than trait diversity (2015, methodology): “16 but by the variation across species in the a priori selected morphological and behavioural traits known to affect pollination efficiency (Fontaine et al. 2006; Hoehn et al. 2008; Campbell et al. 408 2012; Albrecht et al. 2012; Martins, Gonzalez & Lechowicz 2015).”
The PREDICTS database: a global database of how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human impacts (2014, background): “This is essential for understanding the impact of biodiversity loss on ecosystem function and ecosystem services, which operate at the local level (Fontaine et al. 2006; Isbell et al. 2011; Cardinale et al. 2012; Hooper et al. 2012).”
Pollination services are mediated by bee functional diversity and landscape context (2015, background): “This sort of positive relationship between functional diversity and pollination services has been validated both experimentally (Fontaine et al. 2005; Albrecht et al. 2012; Fründ et al. 2013) and in observational studies (Chagnon, Ingras & Oliveira 1993; Greenleaf & Kremen 2006; Hoehn et al.”
Functional group diversity of bee pollinators increases crop yield (2008, methodology): “…due to niche complementarity (Hooper et al. 2005; Cardinale et al. 2006), whereby a combination of many different species can extract more resources in space and time than can a species-poor community (Cardinale et al. 2004, 2006; Fargione & Tilman 2005; Hooper et al. 2005; Fontaine et al. 2006).”
Influence of combined pesticide and parasite exposure on bumblebee colony traits in the laboratory (2014, background): “2011a) and ecosystem stability (Bascompte, Jordano & Olesen 2006; Fontaine et al. 2006).”
From research to action: Enhancing crop yield through wild pollinators (2014, background): “Across crop species, insects with contrasting mouthpart (eg tongue) lengths may be needed for the pollination of flowers not only with easily accessible rewards but also with rewards hidden at the bottom of a tubular corolla (Fontaine et al. 2006).”
Patterns of widespread decline in North American bumble bees (2011, background): “Pollinator decline has become a worldwide issue (9, 34), raising increasing concerns over impacts on global food production (35), stability of pollination services (36), and disruption of plant–pollinator networks (2, 3).”
Resource Heterogeneity Moderates the Biodiversity-Function Relationship in Real World Ecosystems (2008, neutral): “threaten crop production [14–16].”
Community structure of pollination webs of Mauritian heathland habitats (2009, background): “(Fontaine et al., 2006), and species-rich floras support a higher diversity of pollinators (Kevan 1999).”
Global warming and the disruption of plant-pollinator interactions. (2007, background): “…are no guarantee against eventual loss of more generalized species and decay of functionality of pollination services (Memmott et al. 2004; Fontaine et al. 2006 ) in the face of climate change, insofar as climate change will move these systems in a directional fashion beyond their…”