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Extreme Drought Affects Visitation and Seed Set in a Plant Species in the Central Chilean Andes Heavily Dependent on Hummingbird Pollination

Rising temperatures and increasing drought in Mediterranean-type climate areas are expected to affect plant–pollinator interactions, especially in plant species with specialised pollination. Central Chile experienced a mega drought between 2010 and 2020 which reached an extreme in the austral summer...

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Autores principales: Arroyo, Mary T. K., Robles, Valeria, Tamburrino, Ítalo, Martínez-Harms, Jaime, Garreaud, René D., Jara-Arancio, Paola, Pliscoff, Patricio, Copier, Ana, Arenas, Jonás, Keymer, Joaquín, Castro, Kiara
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7697181/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33198222
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants9111553
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author Arroyo, Mary T. K.
Robles, Valeria
Tamburrino, Ítalo
Martínez-Harms, Jaime
Garreaud, René D.
Jara-Arancio, Paola
Pliscoff, Patricio
Copier, Ana
Arenas, Jonás
Keymer, Joaquín
Castro, Kiara
author_facet Arroyo, Mary T. K.
Robles, Valeria
Tamburrino, Ítalo
Martínez-Harms, Jaime
Garreaud, René D.
Jara-Arancio, Paola
Pliscoff, Patricio
Copier, Ana
Arenas, Jonás
Keymer, Joaquín
Castro, Kiara
author_sort Arroyo, Mary T. K.
collection PubMed
description Rising temperatures and increasing drought in Mediterranean-type climate areas are expected to affect plant–pollinator interactions, especially in plant species with specialised pollination. Central Chile experienced a mega drought between 2010 and 2020 which reached an extreme in the austral summer of 2019–2020. Based on intensive pollinator sampling and floral studies we show that the subalpine form of Mutisia subulata (Asteraceae) is a specialised hummingbird-pollinated species. In a two-year study which included the severest drought year, we quantified visitation frequency, flower-head density, flower-head visitation rates, two measures of floral longevity, nectar characteristics and seed set and monitored climatic variables to detect direct and indirect climate-related effects on pollinator visitation. Flower-head density, nectar standing crop and seed set were significantly reduced in the severest drought year while nectar concentration increased. The best model to explain visitation frequency included flower-head density, relative humidity, temperature, and nectar standing crop with highly significant effects of the first three variables. Results for flower-head density suggest hummingbirds were able to associate visual signals with reduced resource availability and/or were less abundant. The negative effect of lower relative humidity suggests the birds were able to perceive differences in nectar concentration. Reduced seed set per flower-head together with the availability of far fewer ovules in the 2019–2020 austral summer would have resulted in a major reduction in seed set. Longer and more intense droughts in this century could threaten local population persistence in M. subulata.
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spelling pubmed-76971812020-11-29 Extreme Drought Affects Visitation and Seed Set in a Plant Species in the Central Chilean Andes Heavily Dependent on Hummingbird Pollination Arroyo, Mary T. K. Robles, Valeria Tamburrino, Ítalo Martínez-Harms, Jaime Garreaud, René D. Jara-Arancio, Paola Pliscoff, Patricio Copier, Ana Arenas, Jonás Keymer, Joaquín Castro, Kiara Plants (Basel) Article Rising temperatures and increasing drought in Mediterranean-type climate areas are expected to affect plant–pollinator interactions, especially in plant species with specialised pollination. Central Chile experienced a mega drought between 2010 and 2020 which reached an extreme in the austral summer of 2019–2020. Based on intensive pollinator sampling and floral studies we show that the subalpine form of Mutisia subulata (Asteraceae) is a specialised hummingbird-pollinated species. In a two-year study which included the severest drought year, we quantified visitation frequency, flower-head density, flower-head visitation rates, two measures of floral longevity, nectar characteristics and seed set and monitored climatic variables to detect direct and indirect climate-related effects on pollinator visitation. Flower-head density, nectar standing crop and seed set were significantly reduced in the severest drought year while nectar concentration increased. The best model to explain visitation frequency included flower-head density, relative humidity, temperature, and nectar standing crop with highly significant effects of the first three variables. Results for flower-head density suggest hummingbirds were able to associate visual signals with reduced resource availability and/or were less abundant. The negative effect of lower relative humidity suggests the birds were able to perceive differences in nectar concentration. Reduced seed set per flower-head together with the availability of far fewer ovules in the 2019–2020 austral summer would have resulted in a major reduction in seed set. Longer and more intense droughts in this century could threaten local population persistence in M. subulata. MDPI 2020-11-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7697181/ /pubmed/33198222 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants9111553 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Arroyo, Mary T. K.
Robles, Valeria
Tamburrino, Ítalo
Martínez-Harms, Jaime
Garreaud, René D.
Jara-Arancio, Paola
Pliscoff, Patricio
Copier, Ana
Arenas, Jonás
Keymer, Joaquín
Castro, Kiara
Extreme Drought Affects Visitation and Seed Set in a Plant Species in the Central Chilean Andes Heavily Dependent on Hummingbird Pollination
title Extreme Drought Affects Visitation and Seed Set in a Plant Species in the Central Chilean Andes Heavily Dependent on Hummingbird Pollination
title_full Extreme Drought Affects Visitation and Seed Set in a Plant Species in the Central Chilean Andes Heavily Dependent on Hummingbird Pollination
title_fullStr Extreme Drought Affects Visitation and Seed Set in a Plant Species in the Central Chilean Andes Heavily Dependent on Hummingbird Pollination
title_full_unstemmed Extreme Drought Affects Visitation and Seed Set in a Plant Species in the Central Chilean Andes Heavily Dependent on Hummingbird Pollination
title_short Extreme Drought Affects Visitation and Seed Set in a Plant Species in the Central Chilean Andes Heavily Dependent on Hummingbird Pollination
title_sort extreme drought affects visitation and seed set in a plant species in the central chilean andes heavily dependent on hummingbird pollination
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7697181/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33198222
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants9111553
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