Fragility of nocturnal interactions: Pollination intensity increases with distance to light pollution sources but decreases with increasing environmental suitability

SOTERAS, FLORENCIA; CAMPS, GONZALO ANDRÉS; COSTAS, SANTIAGO MARTÍN; GIAQUINTA, ADRIÁN; PERALTA, GUADALUPE; COCUCCI, ANDREA ARÍSTIDES

ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION

ELSEVIER SCI LTD

Año: 2022 vol. 292

0269-7491

Lightpollution represents a widespread long-established human-madedisturbance and an important threat to nocturnal pollination.Distance from the niche centroid where optimal environmentalconditions join may be related to species sensitivity to habitatchange. We estimated the environmental suitability of the plantspecies Erythrostemon gilliesii and of its guild of hawkmothpollinators. We considered the overlap of suitability maps of bothpartners as the environmental suitability of the interaction. We useda three-year record of ten E. gilliesii populations to calculatepollination intensity as the number of individuals that receivedpollen per population. In addition, for each population, we measuredthe distance to the high light pollution source around a buffer of 15km radius. Finally, we predicted pollination intensity values forenvironmental suitability ranging from 0 to 1, and distance to highlight pollution sources ranging from 0 to 56 Km. Pollinationintensity decreased along an axis of increasing environmentalsuitability and increased with distance to sources of lightpollution. The highest values of pollination intensity were observedat greatest distances to sources of light pollution and whereenvironmental suitability of the interaction was lowest. Theprediction model evidenced that, when environmental suitability waslowest, pollination intensity increased with distance to sources ofhigh light pollution. However, when environmental suitability wasintermediate or high, pollination intensity decreased away and until28 km from the sources of high light pollution. Beyond 28 km from thesources of high light pollution, pollination intensity remained lowand constant. Populations under conditions of low environmentalsuitability might be more likely to respond to disturbances thataffect pollinators than populations under conditions of highenvironmental suitability.p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 115%; background: transparent }