Pollinator intraspecific body size variation and sociality influence their interactions with plants

PERALTA, GUADALUPE; RESASCO, JULIAN; WORTHY, SYDNEY; FROST, CAROL M.; GUEVARA, ANGIE T.; MANNING, ISABELLA; CAGNOLO, LUCIANO; BURKLE, LAURA A.

FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Año: 2024

0269-8463

1. Species morphological and behavioural traits are key determinants of which pol-linator species interact with which plant species. However, individuals within spe-cies are not identical in their traits and this diversity could help us understandplant–pollinator interaction patterns.2. Using three independent data sets, we assessed whether bee intraspecific bodysize variation (ITV) and sociality influenced pollinator interaction specialisation,intraspecific niche partitioning, centrality in the interaction network and phylo-genetic diversity of the plants visited.3. We found that solitary pollinators were more specialised in their interactions withplants and had lower intraspecific niche partitioning compared to social pollina-tors. Furthermore, solitary pollinators with higher ITV had higher centrality in thenetwork and visited a higher phylogenetic diversity of plants compared to solitaryspecies with lower ITV, whereas the opposite pattern emerged for social pollina-tors. Pollinator ITV did not differ between social and solitary bee species.4. Our findings show that the effect of pollinator body size variation on plant–pol-linator interactions depends on pollinator species sociality. Specifically, solitarypollinators with higher ITV and social pollinators with lower ITV seem to be themost important contributors to maintaining the evolutionary diversity of theplant community, and also the species with the largest potential to affect (viacascade effects) the entire plant–pollinator network.