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- Title
Floral identity and availability along with surrounding landscapes affect pollinator communities in eastern Tennessee.
- Authors
Khalil, Amani; Sykes, Virginia; Russo, Laura
- Abstract
Context: Anthropogenic land use can significantly alter insect communities and may threaten services provided by beneficial flower-visiting insects. However, the plant community composition may interact with surrounding land use to affect insects in a way that is not well understood. Objectives: Our goal was to disentangle the effect of the background plant community on the flowering visiting insect community composition from the independent effect of surrounding land use. Methods: We planted four fixed community garden plots, three that each contained six species of one plant family (Asteraceae, Fabaceae, Lamiaceae) and one that was a mixed community plot, controlling the number of individuals and species identity of the plants. We then replicated these four fixed plots across five different landscapes in eastern Tennessee and surveyed the insects that visited the flowers for 2 years. Results: Both the identity and abundance of floral resources were strong drivers of flower-visiting insect abundance, with floral display being the single largest driver. Independent of the plant community, specific pollinating insects responded to different types of land use at different radii around each site. Total flower visitor and soldier beetle abundance increased with agricultural land use at 500 and 2000 m, respectively. On the other hand, sweat bee abundance increased with semi-natural land use at 2000 m and honey bee abundance increased with developed land use at 1000 m. Conclusion: Independent of plant community composition, surrounding land use affected the abundance, diversity, and composition of flower-visiting insects. However, there was not one consistent land use effect across all flower-visiting insects.
- Subjects
TENNESSEE; INSECT pollinators; HALICTIDAE; INSECT communities; POLLINATORS; FLOWERING of plants
- Publication
Landscape Ecology, 2023, Vol 38, Issue 10, p2623
- ISSN
0921-2973
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s10980-023-01728-5