DOI: 10.5061/dryad.wh70rxwj3
title: Flower traits, habitat and phylogeny as predictors of pollinator service: a plant community perspective

description: Pollinator service is essential for successful sexual reproduction and
 long-term population persistence of animal-pollinated plants, and
 innumerable studies have shown that insufficient service by pollinators
 results in impaired sexual reproduction (“pollen limitation”). Studies
 directly addressing the predictors of variation in pollinator service
 across species or habitats remain comparatively scarce, which limits our
 understanding of the primary causes of natural variation in pollen
 limitation. This paper evaluates the importance of pollination-related
 features, evolutionary history and environment as predictors of pollinator
 service in a large sample of plant species from undisturbed montane
 habitats in southeastern Spain. Quantitative data on pollinator visitation
 were obtained for 191 insect-pollinated species belonging to 142 genera in
 43 families, and the predictive values of simple floral traits (perianth
 type, class of pollinator visitation unit, and visitation unit dry mass),
 phylogeny, and habitat type were assessed. A total of 24,866 pollinator
 censuses accounting for 5,414,856 flower-min of observation were conducted
 on 510 different dates. Flowering patch and single flower visitation
 probabilities by all pollinators combined were significantly predicted by
 the combined effects of perianth type (open vs. restricted), class of
 visitation unit (single flower vs. flower packet), mass of visitation
 unit, phylogenetic relationships, and habitat type. Pollinator composition
 at insect order level varied extensively among plant species, largely
 reflecting the contrasting visitation responses of Coleoptera, Diptera,
 Hymenoptera and Lepidoptera to variation in floral traits. Pollinator
 composition had a strong phylogenetic component, and the distribution of
 phylogenetic autocorrelation hotspots of visitation rates across the plant
 phylogeny differed widely among insect orders. Habitat type was a key
 predictor of pollinator composition, as major insect orders exhibited
 decoupled variation across habitat types in visitation rates.
 Comprehensive pollinator sampling of a regional plant community has shown
 that pollinator visitation and composition can be parsimoniously predicted
 by a combination of simple floral features, habitat type and evolutionary
 history. Ambitious community-level studies can help to formulate novel
 hypotheses and questions, shed fresh light on long-standing controversies
 in pollination research (e.g., “pollination syndromes”), and identify
 methodological cautions that should be considered in pollination community
 studies dealing with small, phylogenetically-biased plant species samples.
description: Pollinator visitation
 data Pollinator visitation
 data for the <em>N</em> = 191 plant species
 studied. file
 master.data.csv R Script 1
 Statistical
 analyses for the section "Sample variance components of pollinator
 visitation",  Table 2, Figure 2, and Appendix S4 file Script.1.R
 
 R Script
 2 Statistical analyses for
 the section "Pollinators and floral features", Fig. 4, Table S1,
 and Appendix S5 file Script.2.R
 
 R Script
 3 Analyses for the
 sections "Pollinators and phylogenetic relationships" and
 "Phylogenetic regressions on habitat type", and Tables 3 and
 4 file
 Script.3.R R Script 4
 Statistical
 analyses for section "Pollinators and habitat type",  and Figs.
 6 and 7 file Script.4.R