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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Functional Plant Ecology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1464970
This article is part of the Research Topic Plant-pollinator Interactions in the Changing World View all articles

Constructing more comprehensive pollination networks: Integrating diurnal and nocturnal pollen data with visitation in a subalpine wetland community

Provisionally accepted
Yan-Bing Gong Yan-Bing Gong 1*Yue Teng Yue Teng 1*Jana Vamosi Jana Vamosi 2Xiao-Fan Wang Xiao-Fan Wang 1*
  • 1 Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
  • 2 University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

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

    Sampling for describing plant-pollinator interaction networks has been performed using techniques that either focus on the plants (with flower-visit data) or the animals (with analyzing pollen on the body surface of flower visitors). The differences in the structure of the networks obtained using these methods likely influences our understanding of the contribution of nocturnal pollinators, yet this key finding has yet to be the focus of study. In this study, we conducted an intensive diurnal field survey in the subalpine meadows of the Dajiuhu Wetland and supplemented the data with an analysis of diurnal and nocturnal pollen data to examine the changes in pollination networks. We observed 41 plant and 154 pollinator species, corresponding to 665 specific interactions. Visitation and pollen analyses showed significant differences in the composition and interaction between network plants and pollinators, resulting in important structural changes in the network. Given that the diurnal pollen data showed new links that were preferentially attached to highly connected nodes, the level of asymmetric specialization did not decrease; however, nestedness increased 1.3-fold,

    Keywords: Light trap, modularity, network structure, Plant-pollinator interactions, Pollen analysis, sample effort

    Received: 15 Jul 2024; Accepted: 20 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Gong, Teng, Vamosi and Wang. 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:
    Yan-Bing Gong, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
    Yue Teng, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
    Xiao-Fan Wang, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

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