Vertical stratification of plant-pollinator interactions in a temperate grassland
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Ecology, Entomology
- Keywords
- pollination, plant-pollinator interactions, entomology, foraging biology, plant reproduction
- Copyright
- © 2017 Klecka et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2017. Vertical stratification of plant-pollinator interactions in a temperate grassland. PeerJ Preprints 5:e3471v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3471v1
Abstract
Interactions between plants and their pollinators vary in time and space at different scales. A neglected aspect of small-scale variation of plant-pollinator interactions is the role of vertical position of flowers. We conducted a series of experiments to study vertical stratification of plant-pollinator interactions in a dry grassland. We observed flower visitors on cut inflorescences of Centaurea scabiosa and Inula salicina placed at different heights above ground in two types of surrounding vegetation: short and tall. Even at such a small-scale, we detected significant shift in total visitation rate of inflorescences in response to their vertical position. In short vegetation, inflorescences close to the ground were visited more frequently, while in high vegetation, inflorescences placed higher received more visits. Moreover, we found major differences in the composition of the pollinator community on flowers at different heights. In a second experiment, we measured flower visitation rate in inflorescences of Salvia verticillata of variable height. Overall flower visitation rate increased markedly with inflorescence height. We also detected a corresponding positive pollinator-mediated selection on increased inflorescence height using data on seed set of individual plants. Overall, our results demonstrate strong vertical stratification of plant-pollinator interactions at the scale of mere decimetres. This may be an important, albeit underappreciated, driver of plant-pollinator coevolution.
Author Comment
This is a preprint submission to PeerJ Preprints. The manuscript has also been submitted to the journal PeerJ.
Supplemental Information
Complete inflorescence visitation data from the experiment on the role of inflorescence height and the height of the surrounding vegetation in Centaurea scabiosa and Inula salicina
The number of inflorescence visits on individual plants in experimental transects surrounded by short or tall vegetation is shown for each flower visitor species or group.
Total visitation of inflorescences of Salvia verticillata depending on inflorescence height
Total number of visitors arriving in each inflorescence during one recording period of approximately 30 minutes is provided for three ramets per plant differing in inflorescence height. Total number of flower visits during the recording period is also provided because most visitors probed multiple flowers per inflorescence visit.
Records of individual visits of inflorescences of Salvia verticillata
Identity of a flower visitor and the number of flowers probed is provided for each inflorescence visit on individual plants. Three ramets per plant were observed and can be distinguished by different inflorescence height.
Seed set in individual ramets of Salvia verticillata in relation to inflorescence height
The number of flowers and the number of developed seeds was counted in individual whorls in inflorescences of each Salvia verticillata plant. Three ramets differing in inflorescence height were used in each plant. Inflorescences were composed of the main stem and usually 1-2 side branches; which were counted separately.