Pollination Responses to Introduced Plants and an Elevation Gradient in Camas Dominated Wet Meadows
Date
2024-01-01
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Abstract
Global change is driving declines in insect biodiversity, with widespread consequences for ecosystem function. Climate change and invasive species are key global change factors, but the ways in which they alter pollination are poorly understood in many systems. Camas meadows occur in the southwestern-most areas of Canada, where they support high floral and pollinator diversity, yet we know little about the pollination ecology of these meadows, let alone how they are impacted by aspects of global change. My objectives in this thesis were to evaluate evidence that camas meadows are experiencing impacts related to climate change and plant invasions. I used a pollen limitation experiment conducted across an elevation gradient to evaluate whether variation in climate generates phenological asynchrony between camas and its pollinators, and used plant-pollinator network analysis to examine whether introduced plants were driving changes in pollination networks. I found that there was no evidence for phenological asynchrony, though camas reproduction was slightly limited by pollen at low elevations, while overall seed production declined as camas approached its elevational limit. Introduced species did not alter network structure, but when removed from networks they had come to dominate, networks were less able to resist further species loss. This suggests that if maintaining pollination is desired, invasive species management decisions should consider the risks associated with losing the floral resources they seek to control. My results describe a system which in its current state, appears robust to the aspects of global change examined (i.e., phenological disturbance and plant invasion) but may be sensitive to further disruption, particularly the removal of abundant introduced plants that pollinators have come to rely upon.
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Keywords
Pollination ecology, Camas meadows, Pollen limitation, Bipartite pollination network, Environmental gradient, Invasive species
Citation
Rampton, R. W. (2024). Pollination responses to introduced plants and an elevation gradient in camas dominated wet meadows (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.