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Contributed Talk

Session: : Pollination 2

COS 42-4 - Pollinator intraspecific trait variability and sociality influence plant-pollinator interactions

Monday, August 7, 2023
4:15 PM – 4:30 PM PDT
Location: E143
Abstract: Species morphology and behavior are two key drivers of plant-pollinator interactions. However, individuals from the same species are not identical and such diversity within species could help us understand community patterns. Using three datasets from North America, we assessed whether bee pollinator sociality and intraspecific trait variability (ITV) in body size influence pollinator interaction generalism, intraspecific niche partitioning, the phylogenetic diversity of plants with which the pollinator species interacts, and pollinator species roles in the interaction network. We found solitary pollinators were more specialized in their interactions with plants and had higher intraspecific niche partitioning compared to social pollinators. Furthermore, solitary pollinators with higher ITV interacted with plant species with higher phylogenetic diversity and had more central roles in the interaction network compared to solitary species with lower ITV, whereas the opposite pattern emerged for social pollinators. Collectively, these results suggest that understanding patterns of and variation in plant-pollinator interactions will benefit from an understanding of intraspecific as well as interspecific variation in traits such as pollinator body size. The degree to which intraspecific variation in plant traits, such as flower size, contribute to these patterns is poorly understood and a promising area for future investigation.