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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Functional Plant Ecology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1472066
This article is part of the Research Topic Floral Adaptations and Pollinator Dynamics in a Rapidly Changing Environment View all 4 articles

Pollen metabarcoding reveals a broad diversity of plant sources available to farmland flower visitors near tropical montane forest

Provisionally accepted
B. Karina Montero B. Karina Montero 1,2*Nicole Gamboa-Barrantes Nicole Gamboa-Barrantes 1,2Geovanna Rojas-Malavasi Geovanna Rojas-Malavasi 1,2E. Jacob Cristóbal-Perez E. Jacob Cristóbal-Perez 3,4Gilbert Barrantes Gilbert Barrantes 1,2,4Alfredo Cascante-Marín Alfredo Cascante-Marín 1,2,4Paul Hanson Paul Hanson 1,2Manuel A Zumbado Manuel A Zumbado 5Ruth Madrigal-Brenes Ruth Madrigal-Brenes 1,2,4Silvana Martén-Rodríguez Silvana Martén-Rodríguez 3,4,6Mauricio Quesada Mauricio Quesada 3,4Eric J Fuchs Eric J Fuchs 1,2,3,4*
  • 1 Centro de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Ecología Tropical, Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, San Jose, Costa Rica
  • 2 Escuela de Biología, Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, San Jose, Costa Rica
  • 3 Laboratorio Nacional de Análisis y Síntesis Ecológica, Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores, Unidad Morelia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia, México, Mexico
  • 4 Laboratorio Binacional de Análisis y Síntesis Ecológica, UNAM-UCR, México-Costa Rica, Costa Rica
  • 5 Investigador Colaborador, Museo de Zoología, Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, San Jose, Costa Rica
  • 6 Laboratorio de Ecología Evolutiva de Plantas, Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores-Morelia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México,, Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico

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

    Despite the widely recognized role of pollinators in ecosystem services, we currently have a poor understanding of the contribution of Natural Protected Areas neighboring agricultural landscapes to crop pollinator diversity and plant-pollinator interactions. Here, we conducted monthly surveys over a period of one year to study the diversity of insect visitors in dominant fruit crops—avocado, plum, apple, and blackberry—and used pollen DNA metabarcoding to characterize the community of plant sources in and around low-intensive farmland bordered by protected montane forest in Costa Rica. We found that crops and native plants had distinct communities of flower visitors, suggesting the presence of fine-scale habitat differences. DNA metabarcoding coupled with a custom-built reference database, enabled us to identify plant sources among pollen samples with high taxonomic resolution (species or genus level). We found that insect visitors carried pollen from a large diversity of plant taxa, including species native to the montane forests and highland páramos of Costa Rica. The diversity and composition of plant sources were variable across fruit crops and insect groups. Wildflower visitors such as bumblebees and syrphid flies, use a diverse range of plant taxa at similar levels to managed honeybees. This indicates the potential contribution of a diverse community of insect visitors to the pollination services of fruit crops and native flora. Overall, our study suggests that low-intensive farming practices that promote the presence of common ruderals combined with nearby protected forests contribute to maintaining diverse insect communities that provide crucial pollination services.

    Keywords: insect visitor communities, low-intensive farming, Fruit crops, tropical montane forest, ecosystem services

    Received: 28 Jul 2024; Accepted: 25 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Montero, Gamboa-Barrantes, Rojas-Malavasi, Cristóbal-Perez, Barrantes, Cascante-Marín, Hanson, Zumbado, Madrigal-Brenes, Martén-Rodríguez, Quesada and Fuchs. 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:
    B. Karina Montero, Centro de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Ecología Tropical, Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, San Jose, Costa Rica
    Eric J Fuchs, Centro de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Ecología Tropical, Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, San Jose, Costa Rica

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