A review of European studies on pollination networks and pollen limitation, and a case study designed to fill in a gap.

Joanne M Bennett,Demetra Rakosy,Inge-Beatrice Biro,Denisa P Kalisch,Reinart Feldmann,Irina Goia,Anna-Maria Madaj,Ana Bogdan,Tiffany M Knight,Amibeth Thompson,Gwydion Scherer,Sarah Passonneau,Alina Martin,Mirela Beloiu,Milena Filip,Valentin Ştefan,Simon Bluemel

doi:10.1093/aobpla/ply068

Abstract

Anthropogenic environmental change disrupts interactions between plants and their animal pollinators. To assess the importance of different drivers, baseline information is needed on interaction networks and plant reproductive success around the world. We conducted a systematic literature review to determine the state of our knowledge on plant–pollinator interactions and the ecosystem services they provide for European ecosystems. We focussed on studies that published information on plant–pollinator networks, as a community-level assessment of plant–pollinator interactions and pollen limitation, which assesses the degree to which plant reproduction is limited by pollinator services. We found that the majority of our knowledge comes from Western Europe, and thus there is a need for baseline assessments in the traditional landscapes of Eastern Europe. To address this data gap, we quantified plant–pollinator interactions and conducted breeding system and pollen supplementation experiments in a traditionally managed mountain meadow in the Western Romanian Carpathians. We found the Romanian meadow to be highly diverse, with a healthy plant–pollinator network. Despite the presence of many pollinator-dependent plant species, there was no evidence of pollen limitation. Our study is the first to provide baseline information for a healthy meadow at the community level on both plant–pollinator interactions and their relationship with ecosystem function (e.g. plant reproduction) in an Eastern European country. Alongside the baseline data, we also provide recommendations for future research, and the methodological information needed for the continued monitoring and management of Eastern European meadows.

Highlights

Europe has a long history of human use of grassland ecosystems as hay meadows; these ecosystems currently contain high biodiversity, being one of only two global community types that contain a global plant species richness maximum (Wilson et al 2012) and are considered a global conservation priority (Habel et al 2013)
We find that the large majority of published studies investigating pollen limitation or plant–pollinator networks are conducted in Western Europe (Fig. 1)
There were 86 species of plants that were flowering during our week of sampling in the meadow [see Supporting Information—Table S2], which included Arnica montana and C. serrata, which are species considered to be a conservation interest under the Habitats Directive (1992) and 23 species known to be important for medicinal purposes and/or used as a food resource (IUCN 2015)

Summary

Introduction

Europe has a long history of human use of grassland ecosystems as hay meadows; these ecosystems currently contain high biodiversity, being one of only two global community types that contain a global plant species richness maximum (Wilson et al 2012) and are considered a global conservation priority (Habel et al 2013). Recent changes in agricultural practices over the past few decades, such as agricultural intensification and abandonment, threaten these species-rich meadows (Strohbach et al 2015). Since joining the European Union, rapid economic development has led to an increasing rate of land-use abandonment and change in Eastern European countries, providing an imperative to collect baseline data in these areas (Culbert et al 2017)

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Conclusion