PARENT SESSION
Symposium #17: Specialization and Generalization in Plant-Pollinator Interactions.

Organized by: NM Waser, J Ollerton, and R Zamora
Wednesday, August 7. 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM. Crystal Ballroom, TCC.

Organization of Mediterranean plant-pollinator communities: diversity, complexity, and mutual dependence.

Potts, Simon^*,1,2, Petanidou, Theodora³, ¹ University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK² Centre for Agro-Environmental Research, Reading, UK³ University of the Aegean, Lesvos, Greece

ABSTRACT- The eastern Mediterranean basin is a recognized global hotspot for flowering plant and bee diversity. The landscape comprises a mosaic of post-fire habitats locked in continual regeneration and is subject to a multitude of natural and anthropogenic perturbations, including grazing, intensifying agriculture and introduction of non-native invasives. The exceptional diversity, coupled with the dynamic nature of the landscape and extensive flowering season, present major challenges for the study of plant-pollinator interactions at the community level. To date, few studies have attempted to address this problem; but here we present the findings of two long-term studies based in Greece and Israel. We explore the structure and function of plant-pollinator interactions at three scales: 1) at the ecosystem level we show how flowering plant community diversity and reward structure organize bee community structure across a series of post-fire habitats; 2) at the community level we use a bridge function and an index of connectance to quantify the degree of association between bees and flowers through time; 3) at the species level we examine the incidence and variation in specialization and generalization within these communities. We relate our findings to those from other ecosystems and highlight the factors that maintain the high levels of biodiversity and complexity in plant-pollinator communities of the eastern Mediterranean.

KEY WORDS: pollination, specialization/generalization, community structure, Mediterranean