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Regional patterns of nectar availability in subtropical eastern Australia

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Abstract

Context

There are few detailed data for short-term (≤ monthly) fluctuations in flowering and nectar availability at relatively large spatial scales. Such information is critical for understanding the governors of variation in flowering and for the management of floral resources assisting the persistence of nectar consumers in landscapes.

Objectives

To obtain monthly measurements of patterns of nectar availability in a 314,400 ha region, and to relate these patterns to potential environmental predictors.

Methods

Flowering was measured at 83 sites in natural vegetation and in eight domestic gardens in subtropical, eastern Australia. A nectar-availability index was developed was based on nectarivore visitation rates and plant-specific flowering patterns. Spatial–temporal patterns were related to environmental variables using boosted regression trees.

Results

The large between-year variation was due mostly to irregular flowering by several eucalypt species. There was a ‘lean season’ in the austral spring (August–September). Coastal vegetation was an important source of nectar for much of the year, including the lean season. Gardens produced prolific nectar throughout the year, peaking in August–October.

Conclusions

Nectar availability was most closely associated with primary productivity over the previous 12 months, average annual solar radiation, topographic wetness, and rainfall over the previous 6 months, although some relationships seemed counter-intuitive. There were large differences in nectar availabilities among broad vegetation types (especially rainforests vs. sclerophyllous forests), which partially accounted for the unintuitive results.

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Acknowledgements

This work was completed with funding from the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment and the Birdlife Australia Stuart Leslie Foundation. We much appreciated the assistance of Hugh A. Ford and Simon Ferrier at various stages of the project design. Glenn Manion (NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service) assisted with survey gap analysis. Sandy Berry (ANU) supplied GPP data. Garden surveys were conducted under instruction by the first author by Anne Evans, Phil Gilmour, Maureen Maloney, Gerard Peguero, John Purslove and Carol Simons, to whom we are most grateful. The MS was much improved by the questions raised by two reviewers.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of the Environment and Energy, Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia

    Brian A. Hawkins

  2. Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research, Victoria, 3084, Australia

    James R. Thomson

  3. Institute for Applied Ecology, The University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia

    Ralph Mac Nally

Authors
  1. Brian A. Hawkins
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  2. James R. Thomson
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  3. Ralph Mac Nally
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Contributions

All authors designed the survey program and analysed the data. BAH conducted all of the field work. BAH led the writing with significant contributions from RM and JRT.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ralph Mac Nally.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

10980_2018_647_MOESM1_ESM.docx

Table S1. Information used to derive values for the nectar index for bird-used flowering plants. Table S2. Reliably flowering species (i.e. species of which at least some individuals flower every year) in bushland. Figure S1. Partial plots for the eight most influential predictors based on the outcomes of the Random Forests analysis. Abbreviations are defined in Table 2 (main text). Figure S2. Excluding rainforest sites: Partial plots for the eight most influential predictors based on the outcomes of the Boosted Regression Tree analysis. Abbreviations are defined in Table 2 (main text). Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 160 kb)

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Hawkins, B.A., Thomson, J.R. & Mac Nally, R. Regional patterns of nectar availability in subtropical eastern Australia. Landscape Ecol 33, 999–1012 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-018-0647-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-018-0647-7

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