info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Contrasting responses of plants and pollinators to woodland disturbance
Fecha
2019-09Registro en:
Coulin, Carolina; Aizen, Marcelo Adrian; Garibaldi, Lucas Alejandro; Contrasting responses of plants and pollinators to woodland disturbance; Wiley Blackwell Publishing, Inc; Austral Ecology; 44; 6; 9-2019; 1040-1051
1442-9985
CONICET Digital
CONICET
Autor
Coulin, Carolina
Aizen, Marcelo Adrian
Garibaldi, Lucas Alejandro
Resumen
Preserving species diversity is critical to ensure ecosystem functioning; however, different components of diversity might respond to human disturbance in different ways. Similarly, trophic levels might have uncoupled responses to the same disturbance, thus ameliorating or aggravating the persistence of ecological communities. In this study, we analysed how the density, richness and evenness of flowers and pollinators respond to four levels of woodland thinning intensity (0, 30, 50 and 70% of woodland basal area removed) over 2 years in three contrasting sites. We found a mismatch in the response of flowers and pollinators to thinning. Flower density and richness had disparate responses, depending on the site and year, while evenness did not change with thinning. In contrast, pollinator density and richness, but not evenness, consistently increased with thinning among years and sites. These results suggest that thinning has a great influence on pollinators through changes in abiotic conditions and, perhaps, flower attractiveness rather than through small-scale changes in flower density and richness. At the site where tree flowers were absent, bee pollinator community composition was impoverished, suggesting that trees provide important floral resources to pollinators. Our findings indicate that disturbance may diminish local plant abundance and richness, but pollinator abundance and richness are enhanced after intense thinning at small scales.