School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia.
Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research, CSIRO, Canberra, Australia.
Environ Entomol. 2021 Apr 23;50(2):348-358. doi: 10.1093/ee/nvaa180.
Weather conditions, such as humidity, temperature, and wind speed, affect insect activity. Understanding how different taxa respond to varying environmental conditions is necessary to determine the extent to which environmental change may impact plant-pollinator networks. This is particularly important in alpine regions where taxa may be more susceptible to extreme climatic events and overall increases in temperature. We observed plant-flower visitor interactions in Australian alpine plant communities to determine 1) the structure of the plant-flower visitor community, and 2) how floral visitation and diversity of insect taxa varied according to environmental conditions and habitat type. Coleoptera and Diptera were the most dominant flower visitors in the visitation networks. Most insect orders were moderately generalized in their interactions, but Hymenoptera showed greater specialization (d') at exposed sites compared to other insect orders. Importantly, insect orders behaved differently in response to changes in environmental conditions. Hymenoptera visitation increased with higher temperatures. Diptera was the only taxon observed actively moving between flowers under inclement conditions. Our results demonstrate the value in sampling across the spectrum of environmental conditions to capture the differences among flower visiting insect taxa in their responses to varying environmental conditions. A diversity of responses among insect taxa could facilitate community-level resilience to changing environmental conditions.
天气条件，如湿度、温度和风速，会影响昆虫的活动。了解不同分类群对不同环境条件的反应，对于确定环境变化可能对植物-传粉者网络产生的影响程度是必要的。在高山地区，情况尤其如此，那里的分类群可能更容易受到极端气候事件和整体温度上升的影响。我们观察了澳大利亚高山植物群落中的植物-花访客相互作用，以确定 1）植物-花访客群落的结构，以及 2）根据环境条件和栖息地类型，花的访问和昆虫分类群多样性如何变化。鞘翅目和双翅目是访问网络中最主要的花访客。大多数昆虫目在其相互作用中具有中等程度的综合性，但与其他昆虫目相比，膜翅目在暴露地点表现出更大的专业化（d'）。重要的是，昆虫目对环境条件的变化有不同的反应。膜翅目访问量随温度升高而增加。双翅目是唯一一种在恶劣条件下主动在花之间移动的分类群。我们的研究结果表明，在采样整个环境条件谱中捕捉到不同的花访问昆虫分类群对不同环境条件的反应，这是有价值的。昆虫分类群之间的多样性反应可以促进社区层面适应不断变化的环境条件的能力。
