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Competition and facilitation among plants for pollination: can pollinator abundance shift the plant–plant interactions?

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Abstract

We hypothesize interactions among plants for pollination may depend on pollinator abundance, which always varies among years and habitats and has different effects on plant reproductive success. Honeybee-pollinated plants, Lotus corniculatus, and its commonly coflowering neighbor, Potentilla reptans var. sericophylla, were used in a two-year project. We designed six types of plant combinations with different conspecific and interspecific flower densities in 2011 and repeated this in the same site in 2012. Meanwhile, we artificially increased pollinator abundance by hiring beehives only in 2011. Pollinator abundance as well as flower density significantly affected pollination of L. corniculatus plants from both the conspecific and interspecific plots. Total number of bees visiting a plot was enhanced by an increase in both the conspecific and interspecific flower densities regardless of high or low pollinator abundance. However, changes in visitation rates and fruit sets in the focal plants when flower densities were increased depended on pollinator abundance. Under high pollinator abundance, an increase in both the conspecific and interspecific flower densities significantly enhanced pollinator visits to L. corniculatus. However, under low pollinator abundance, the pollinator visitation rate remained unchanged as conspecific flower density increased, but decreased when there was an increase in interspecific flower density. Coflowering plants enhanced fruit sets of L. corniculatus only when the pollinator abundance was high. The findings suggest that the interactions among plants for pollination are influenced not only by a plant density threshold, but also by a pollinator abundance threshold.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Professor Philip Ladd and two anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions and critical comments, Kuo Liao, Jian Yang, Chui-Xu Wu, Jun Yang, Han-Qing Lai, and Peng-Yun Liu for assistance in field, Yan-Wen Zhang and Kuo Liao for helpful discussion. The research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China to CFY (31370263 and 31070206) and Strategic Pilot Science and Technology Projects of CAS (XDAO5090305) to QFW.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Aquatic Botany and Watershed Ecology, Wuhan Botanical Garden, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Zhong-Ming Ye, Wen-Kui Dai, Xiao-Fang Jin, Qing-Feng Wang & Chun-Feng Yang

  2. College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Zhong-Ming Ye, Wen-Kui Dai & Xiao-Fang Jin

  3. Sino-African Biodiversity Resource Conservation Centre, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, P. O. Box 62000-00200, Nairobi, Kenya

    Rober W. Gituru

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  1. Zhong-Ming Ye
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Correspondence to Qing-Feng Wang or Chun-Feng Yang.

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Ye, ZM., Dai, WK., Jin, XF. et al. Competition and facilitation among plants for pollination: can pollinator abundance shift the plant–plant interactions?. Plant Ecol 215, 3–13 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-013-0274-y

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