Climate, not location, drives pollinator pickiness worldwide
Sakhalkar SP, Blüthgen N, Burkle LA, CaraDonna P, Dalsgaard B
Pollinators
The bees, hummingbirds, or moths visiting your garden are shaped by local temperature and rainfall patterns, meaning your region's pollinator relationships could shift unevenly as climate change accelerates.
Scientists used to think plants and pollinators get pickier about their partners the closer you get to the equator. This huge study of networks from around the world shows that's not true. Instead, temperature and rainfall are the real drivers, and they affect birds, insects, and plants in different, sometimes opposite, ways depending on where you are.
Key Findings
Analysis of over 3,400 quantitative plant-pollinator networks and 110,000+ interactions found no consistent latitudinal gradient in specialization.
Network-level and pollinator specialization peak at low northern latitudes near the tropical-subtropical boundary; plant specialization is hemispherically asymmetric.
Climate outperforms latitude, biodiversity, and productivity as a predictor; specialization declines with rising mean annual temperature, and precipitation effects are nonlinear and diverge between birds and insects.
chevron_right Technical Summary
A massive global study of over 3,400 plant-pollinator networks found that specialization between plants and pollinators doesn't simply increase near the equator as long assumed. Instead, climate, especially temperature and rainfall, shapes how choosy plants and pollinators are about each other, with patterns differing sharply between regions and animal groups.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Global patterns in plant-pollinator specialization.
Pollination is a key ecological process sustaining biodiversity and food security, yet global patterns of plant-pollinator specialization remain unresolved. Using a global dataset of quantitative p...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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