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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Functional Plant Ecology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1448070
This article is part of the Research Topic Plant-pollinator Interactions in the Changing World View all 3 articles

Impacts of increased temperatures on floral rewards and pollinator interactions: a meta-analysis

Provisionally accepted
Shirley Lorena Alquichire-Rojas Shirley Lorena Alquichire-Rojas 1Víctor M. Escobedo Víctor M. Escobedo 2Marcia González-Teuber Marcia González-Teuber 3*
  • 1 Universidad Catolica de la Santisima Concepcion, concepcion, Chile
  • 2 University of Talca, Talca, Chile
  • 3 Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Flowering plants produce pollinator rewards such as nectar and pollen, whose quantity and quality usually depend on the whole-plant state under specific environmental conditions. Increasing aridity and temperature linked to climate change may force plants to allocate fewer resources to these traits, potentially disrupting plant-pollinator interactions. In this study, for the first time, both quantitative review (vote-counting procedure) and meta-analytic approach were used to assess the implications of increased temperatures linked to global warming on floral rewards, including nectar (sugar concentration, content, and volume) and pollen (germination and viability), as well as on pollinator visits. Furthermore, we explored whether observed effects of warming are related either to temperature range, plant type (wild vs crop), or study approach (greenhouse vs field experiments). We also assessed the correlations between elevated temperatures and the characteristics that were affected by the temperature range. The results of the vote-counting technique showed that higher temperatures led to a decrease in floral rewards but did not affect the number of pollinator visits. Concurrently, metaanalysis detected adverse effects of warming on pollen germination and viability.Warming effects depended on the plant type for pollen germination and viability, on study approach for nectar sugar concentration and pollen germination, and on temperature range for pollen germination and pollinator visits. Additionally, we found that pollen germination and pollinator visits significantly decreased as temperature range increased.Our results showed that global warming affects floral rewards in both wild and crop plants, providing insights into the effects of changing climatic conditions on plant-pollinator interactions and pollination services.

    Keywords: Climate Change, warming, Floral rewards, Insect pollinators, nectar, Pollen

    Received: 12 Jun 2024; Accepted: 11 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Alquichire-Rojas, Escobedo and González-Teuber. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Marcia González-Teuber, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.