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Pollinator Foraging Adaptation and Coexistence of Competing Plants
We use the optimal foraging theory to study coexistence between two plant species and a generalist pollinator. We compare conditions for plant coexistence for non-adaptive vs. adaptive pollinators that adjust their foraging strategy to maximize fitness. When pollinators have fixed preferences, we sh...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4978411/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27505254 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0160076 |
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author | Revilla, Tomás A. Křivan, Vlastimil |
author_facet | Revilla, Tomás A. Křivan, Vlastimil |
author_sort | Revilla, Tomás A. |
collection | PubMed |
description | We use the optimal foraging theory to study coexistence between two plant species and a generalist pollinator. We compare conditions for plant coexistence for non-adaptive vs. adaptive pollinators that adjust their foraging strategy to maximize fitness. When pollinators have fixed preferences, we show that plant coexistence typically requires both weak competition between plants for resources (e.g., space or nutrients) and pollinator preferences that are not too biased in favour of either plant. We also show how plant coexistence is promoted by indirect facilitation via the pollinator. When pollinators are adaptive foragers, pollinator’s diet maximizes pollinator’s fitness measured as the per capita population growth rate. Simulations show that this has two conflicting consequences for plant coexistence. On the one hand, when competition between pollinators is weak, adaptation favours pollinator specialization on the more profitable plant which increases asymmetries in plant competition and makes their coexistence less likely. On the other hand, when competition between pollinators is strong, adaptation promotes generalism, which facilitates plant coexistence. In addition, adaptive foraging allows pollinators to survive sudden loss of the preferred plant host, thus preventing further collapse of the entire community. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4978411 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-49784112016-08-25 Pollinator Foraging Adaptation and Coexistence of Competing Plants Revilla, Tomás A. Křivan, Vlastimil PLoS One Research Article We use the optimal foraging theory to study coexistence between two plant species and a generalist pollinator. We compare conditions for plant coexistence for non-adaptive vs. adaptive pollinators that adjust their foraging strategy to maximize fitness. When pollinators have fixed preferences, we show that plant coexistence typically requires both weak competition between plants for resources (e.g., space or nutrients) and pollinator preferences that are not too biased in favour of either plant. We also show how plant coexistence is promoted by indirect facilitation via the pollinator. When pollinators are adaptive foragers, pollinator’s diet maximizes pollinator’s fitness measured as the per capita population growth rate. Simulations show that this has two conflicting consequences for plant coexistence. On the one hand, when competition between pollinators is weak, adaptation favours pollinator specialization on the more profitable plant which increases asymmetries in plant competition and makes their coexistence less likely. On the other hand, when competition between pollinators is strong, adaptation promotes generalism, which facilitates plant coexistence. In addition, adaptive foraging allows pollinators to survive sudden loss of the preferred plant host, thus preventing further collapse of the entire community. Public Library of Science 2016-08-09 /pmc/articles/PMC4978411/ /pubmed/27505254 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0160076 Text en © 2016 Revilla, Křivan http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Revilla, Tomás A. Křivan, Vlastimil Pollinator Foraging Adaptation and Coexistence of Competing Plants |
title | Pollinator Foraging Adaptation and Coexistence of Competing Plants |
title_full | Pollinator Foraging Adaptation and Coexistence of Competing Plants |
title_fullStr | Pollinator Foraging Adaptation and Coexistence of Competing Plants |
title_full_unstemmed | Pollinator Foraging Adaptation and Coexistence of Competing Plants |
title_short | Pollinator Foraging Adaptation and Coexistence of Competing Plants |
title_sort | pollinator foraging adaptation and coexistence of competing plants |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4978411/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27505254 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0160076 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT revillatomasa pollinatorforagingadaptationandcoexistenceofcompetingplants AT krivanvlastimil pollinatorforagingadaptationandcoexistenceofcompetingplants |