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Pollination outcomes reveal negative density‐dependence coupled with interspecific facilitation among plants
- Source :
- Digital.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC, instname
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- John Wiley & Sons, 2020.
-
Abstract
- Pollination is thought to be under positive density‐dependence, destabilising plant coexistence by conferring fitness disadvantages to rare species. Such disadvantage is exacerbated by interspecific competition but can be mitigated by facilitation and intraspecific competition. However, pollinator scarcity should enhance intraspecific plant competition and impose disadvantage on common over rare species (negative density‐dependence, NDD). We assessed pollination proxies (visitation rate, pollen receipt, pollen tubes) in a generalised plant community and related them to conspecific and heterospecific density, expecting NDD and interspecific facilitation due to the natural pollinator scarcity. Contrary to usual expectations, all proxies indicated strong intraspecific competition for common plants. Moreover interspecific facilitation prevailed and was stronger for rare than for common plants. Both NDD and interspecific facilitation were modulated by specialisation, floral display and pollinator group. The combination of intraspecific competition and interspecific facilitation fosters plant coexistence, suggesting that pollination can be a niche axis maintaining plant diversity.<br />This work was supported by FAPESP (grants 2016/06434‐0 and 2018/02996‐0 to P.J.B.), CNPq (grants 436335/2018‐2 to M.W. and 302781/2016‐1 to M.S.) and CAPES (Ph.D. scholarship to N.S.S., Financial Code 001).
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
Specialisation
Pollination
Floral display
Flowers
Biology
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
Intraspecific competition
Pollinator
Niche partitioning
Plant fitness
Coexistence theory
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Ecosystem
Ecology
010604 marine biology & hydrobiology
Allee effects
Niche differentiation
Interspecific competition
Plants
Plant ecology
Facilitation
Pollen
Diversity maintenance
Generalisation
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14610248 and 1461023X
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Ecology Letters
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....c3642762fed695411a8f9e8f9038e3e7