Abstract
Abstract Climate change alters precipitation regimes world‐wide and is regarded as a major threat for pollinators and pollination services. Yet, not much is known on how wetter as well as drier conditions affect food resources for pollinators and pollinator attraction in a multi‐species community context. It is unclear how community shifts under changed hydrological conditions might affect pollinators. This mesocosm study addresses existing research gaps by investigating effects of drought, wetness and temporary flooding on floral resources and pollinator attraction within a plant community, initially including nine insect‐pollinated and six wind‐pollinated species. Floral resources were assessed over three growing seasons. I monitored community descriptors (percentage of herbs and herbaceous species richness, presence of flowering insect‐pollinated individuals), floral traits (flower height, size and weight, floral sugar content of one key species) and proxies for plant fitness (pollinator attraction, seed and flower weight of one key species). Wetness and especially dryness decreased the species richness and biomass proportion of insect‐pollinated herbaceous species and flowering herbaceous plant individuals occurred less frequently. Permanent wetness decreased the floral sugar content of the key species Trifolium pratense . Wet, temporary flooded and especially dry communities were visited by pollinators less often. Active pollinators spent less time within wet and flooded communities, while not at all visiting dry communities. Seed and flower weight of the obligate xenogamous T. pratense in flooded and dry communities decreased, indicating negative consequences for plant fitness caused by a lack of pollination. Synthesis . While dryness had negative effects for floral resources both in terms of community descriptors and floral traits, negative effects of wetness and temporary flooding were mostly caused by a decrease of insect‐pollinated herbaceous species. The study thus indicates that shifts in plant community composition are decisive for a predictive understanding of plant–pollinator interactions under environmental change, but these have been neglected in past research. Changing precipitation patterns will adversely affect floral resources and pollinator attraction in agriculturally used temperate grassland, which might have widespread negative consequences for pollination services and food security in the coming decades.
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Claims 9
Claim · model-written summary
Wetness and especially dryness decreased the species richness and biomass proportion of insect-pollinated herbaceous species.
- Taxon
- herbaceous speciese0
- Treatment
- Wetness and especially drynesse0
- Outcome
- species richness and biomass proportion of insect‐pollinated herbaceous speciese0
- Direction
- decreasede0
Not reportedComparator
Verbatim
e0“Wetness and especially dryness decreased the species richness and biomass proportion of insect‐pollinated herbaceous species and flowering herbaceous plant individuals occurred less frequently”
Claim · model-written summary
Flowering herbaceous plant individuals occurred less frequently under wetness and especially dryness.
- Taxon
- herbaceous plante0
- Treatment
- Wetness and especially drynesse0
- Outcome
- flowering herbaceous plant individuals occurred less frequentlye0
- Direction
- less frequentlye0
Not reportedComparator
Verbatim
e0“Wetness and especially dryness decreased the species richness and biomass proportion of insect‐pollinated herbaceous species and flowering herbaceous plant individuals occurred less frequently”
Claim · model-written summary
Permanent wetness decreased the floral sugar content of Trifolium pratense.
- Taxon
- Trifolium pratense
Trifolium pratensee0 - Treatment
- Permanent wetnesse0
- Outcome
- floral sugar contente0
- Direction
- decreasede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Permanent wetness decreased the floral sugar content of the key species Trifolium pratense”
Claim · model-written summary
Wet, temporarily flooded and especially dry communities were visited by pollinators less often.
- Taxon
- plant communitiest0
- Treatment
- Wet, temporary flooded and especially dry communitiese0
- Interactor
- pollinatorse0pollinator
- Outcome
- visited by pollinatorse0
- Direction
- less oftene0
Not reportedComparator
Verbatim
t0“plant communities”
e0“Wet, temporary flooded and especially dry communities were visited by pollinators less often”
Claim · model-written summary
Active pollinators spent less time within wet and flooded communities.
- Taxon
- plant communitiest0
- Treatment
- wet and flooded communitiese0
- Interactor
- Active pollinatorse0pollinator
- Outcome
- time within wet and flooded communitiese0
- Direction
- less timee0
Not reportedComparator
Verbatim
t0“plant communities”
e0“Active pollinators spent less time within wet and flooded communities, while not at all visiting dry communities”
Claim · model-written summary
Active pollinators did not visit dry communities at all.
- Taxon
- plant communitiest0
- Treatment
- dry communitiese0
- Interactor
- Active pollinatorse0pollinator
- Outcome
- visiting dry communitiese0
- Direction
- not at alle0
Not reportedComparator
Verbatim
t0“plant communities”
e0“Active pollinators spent less time within wet and flooded communities, while not at all visiting dry communities”
Claim · model-written summary
Seed and flower weight of T. pratense decreased in flooded and dry communities.
- Taxon
- T. pratenseTrifolium pratensee0
- Treatment
- flooded and dry communitiese0
- Outcome
- Seed and flower weighte0
- Direction
- decreasede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Seed and flower weight of the obligate xenogamous T. pratense in flooded and dry communities decreased”
Claim · model-written summary
The decrease in seed and flower weight indicates negative consequences for plant fitness caused by a lack of pollination.
- Taxon
- T. pratenseTrifolium pratensee0
- Outcome
- plant fitnesse1
- Qualifier
- caused by a lack of pollinatione1
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Seed and flower weight of the obligate xenogamous T. pratense in flooded and dry communities decreased”
e1“indicating negative consequences for plant fitness caused by a lack of pollination”
Claim · model-written summary
Negative effects of wetness and temporary flooding on floral resources were mostly caused by a decrease of insect-pollinated herbaceous species.
Verbatim
e0“negative effects of wetness and temporary flooding were mostly caused by a decrease of insect‐pollinated herbaceous species”