Grupo de Ecología de la Polinización-Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medio Ambiente (INIBIOMA), CONICET-Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Quintral 1250, 8400, San Carlos de Bariloche, Rio Negro, Argentina.
Unaffiliated, Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
Sci Rep. 2021 Nov 11;11(1):22107. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-01611-w.
Pollinator-mediated plant-plant interactions have traditionally been viewed within the competition paradigm. However, facilitation via pollinator sharing might be the rule rather than the exception in harsh environments. Moreover, plant diversity could be playing a key role in fostering pollinator-mediated facilitation. Yet, the facilitative effect of plant diversity on pollination remains poorly understood, especially under natural conditions. By examining a total of 9371 stigmas of 88 species from nine high-Andean communities in NW Patagonia, we explored the prevalent sign of the relation between conspecific pollen receipt and heterospecific pollen diversity, and assessed whether the incidence of different outcomes varies with altitude and whether pollen receipt relates to plant diversity. Conspecific pollen receipt increased with heterospecific pollen diversity on stigmas. In all communities, species showed either positive or neutral but never negative relations between the number of heterospecific pollen donor species and conspecific pollen receipt. The incidence of species showing positive relations increased with altitude. Finally, stigmas collected from communities with more co-flowering species had richer heterospecific pollen loads and higher abundance of conspecific pollen grains. Our findings suggest that plant diversity enhances pollination success in high-Andean plant communities. This study emphasizes the importance of plant diversity in fostering indirect plant-plant facilitative interactions in alpine environments, which could promote species coexistence and biodiversity maintenance.
传粉媒介介导的植物-植物相互作用传统上被认为是在竞争范式内。然而，在恶劣环境中，通过传粉媒介共享的促进可能是常态而不是例外。此外，植物多样性可能在促进传粉媒介介导的促进作用中发挥关键作用。然而，植物多样性对传粉的促进作用仍然知之甚少，特别是在自然条件下。通过检查来自巴塔哥尼亚西北部九个高海拔安第斯社区的 88 个物种的 9371 个柱头，我们探讨了同种花粉接收和异交花粉多样性之间关系的普遍迹象，并评估了不同结果的发生率是否随海拔而变化，以及花粉接收是否与植物多样性有关。同种花粉接收随柱头异交花粉多样性的增加而增加。在所有社区中，物种之间的关系要么是正相关，要么是中性的，但从未出现过异交花粉供体物种数量与同种花粉接收之间的负相关关系。表现出正相关关系的物种的发生率随海拔的升高而增加。最后，来自具有更多共开花物种的社区的柱头具有更丰富的异交花粉负荷和更高的同种花粉粒丰度。我们的研究结果表明，植物多样性提高了高山植物群落的传粉成功率。本研究强调了植物多样性在促进高山环境中间接植物-植物促进相互作用的重要性，这有助于促进物种共存和生物多样性的维持。
