Plants are capable of going to extreme lengths to get their way. From wearing female insect disguises to lure lustful males, to oozing the stench of rotting flesh to temp hungry flies, no lengths are too gross or expensive to spread their precious pollen.
When there are lots of bees, flies, and other tourists, it's not a problem for most pollinators to visit multiple plants. Research shows that when pollinators become scarce, these lengths could include choosing what to do with plants.
Competition could drive plants to different strategies of interactions and habitat use, which would increase plant diversity, according to Ecological Theory.
As the number of pollinators declines, so do the chances that the same pollinator will visit the same type of rarer plants, meaning more common species will out compete them.
In the face of worrying insect declines and disease impacting our closest pollinating ally, the European honey bee, a team of researchers led by Christopher Johnson put these competing theories to the test.
The researchers were able to control how much pollination happened in some plots by hand. The rest had to depend on the environment. Population and fitness were compared by Johnson.
The plant species used are field mustard, corn gromwell, Buglossoides arvensis, and common poppy.
A further 22 replicate plots were enclosed, with half exposed to only one species and the rest to the background environment. The researchers were able to measure floral visits by pollinators.
Competition for pollination weakened stabilizing niche differences between competitors when pollination was reduced, according to a paper by Johnson and colleagues.
The team concludes that the results support the hypothesis that the more common plants are favored over the more rare plants.
When there is a shortage of insect pollinators, plants grab at all the attention of the remaining pollinators at the expense of their neighbours.
The ability to breed was three times greater for the common poppy when hand-pollinated than for those who rely on background pollination.
The team identified the weakening of this within-species competition as a major driver for destabilizing the multi-speciescommunities.
The result made the average fitness differences between plant species worse.
The rarer plants could be exiling from their once thriving communities, as a result of this.
The researchers didn't think that this would happen uniformly. A new equilibrium could be established with some of the species after the study was done in a small area.
Johnson and colleagues checked to see if the pairwise interaction theymeasured differed when the plants were grown in more specious communities and found that they did not.
If they hold true, it's concerning. It will be difficult to predict interactions between species if plant communities become unstable. Understanding these will be important in our attempts to maintain as much biodiversity as we can.
We can all help reduce insect declines by growing native plants, reverting lawns to natural habitats, avoiding pesticides, herbicides, and other toxic chemicals, and supporting groups and leaders who actually take these tiny but critical parts of our living world into consideration.
The research was published in a journal.
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