Descripción del proyecto
El declive de los polinizadores tiene consecuencias para las plantas y los ecosistemas
El declive de los polinizadores debido al uso del suelo representa una amenaza para las especies de plantas que dependen de la polinización entomófila para su reproducción. Los hallazgos de estudios empíricos recientes sugieren que una menor cantidad de polinizadores altera la composición de las comunidades vegetales de los pastos. En consecuencia, se esperan efectos en cascada en el funcionamiento de los ecosistemas, pero se ha investigado poco su extensión y en qué condiciones se producirán. El proyecto DrivenByPollinators, financiado con fondos europeos, evalúa las dimensiones de los cambios mediados por polinizadores en las comunidades vegetales y su impacto en organismos asociados y funciones importantes de los ecosistemas. El proyecto proporcionará información importante sobre el papel de este mutualismo en el mantenimiento de la diversidad e identificará riesgos relacionados con la polinización para los ecosistemas de pastizal.
Objetivo
Pollinator declines in response to land-use intensification have raised concern about the persistence of plant species dependent on insect pollination, in particular by bees, for their reproduction. Recent empirical studies show that reduced pollinator abundance decreases densities of seedlings of insect-pollinated plants and thereby changes the composition of grassland plant communities. Cascading effects on ecosystem functioning and associated organisms are expected, but to which extent and under which conditions this is the case is yet unexplored. Here, I propose a bold, multi-year, landscape-scale experimental assessment of the extent of pollinator-driven plant community changes, their consequences for associated organisms and important ecosystem functions, and their likely contingency on other factors (soil fertility, herbivory).
Specifically I will:
(1) Set up a network of long-term research plots in landscapes differing in pollinator abundance to measure the changes in plant reproduction over successive years, and assessing experimentally how herbivory and soil fertility mediate these effects.
(2) Explore the individual processes linking pollinators, plant communities and ecosystem functioning using long-term experiments controlling pollinator, herbivore and nutrient availability, focusing on a sample of plant species covering both the dominant species and a diversity of functional traits.
(3) Assess the context-dependence of pollinator-mediated plant community determination by building and applying process-based models based on observational and experimental data, and combine with existing spatially-explicit pollinator models to demonstrate the applicability to assess agri-environmental measures.
This powerful blend of complementary approaches will for the first time shed light on the cornerstone role of this major mutualism in maintaining diverse communities and the functions they support, and pinpoint the risks threatening them and the need for mitigation.
Ámbito científico
Palabras clave
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
ERC-COG - Consolidator GrantInstitución de acogida
22100 Lund
Suecia