ESTABILIDAD ESPACIO-TEMPORAL Y FUNCION DE LAS INTERACCIONES PLANTA-POLINIZADOR ANTE PRESIONES DE USO DEL SUELO Y CLIMATICAS: FLEXIBILIDAD DE NICHO Y VARIACION INTRAESPECIFICA

Pollination is an essential ecosystem service, as ca. 90% of flowering plants and two-thirds of cultivated species depend on it. However, wild pollinators and the pollination service they provide are severely threatened by land-use and climate changes, and this trend is expected to accentuate in the following decades as human population increases.  In FUNLAND, we propose to combine state of the art methodologies with detailed information on interactions, reproductive success, and traits (at the species, individual, and intra-individual levels), to evaluate how interacting stressors such as habitat loss and climate change influence the spatio-temporal stability of the pollination service through changes in intra- and inter-specific functional traits in the communities. For this, we will use new data gathered in this project together with long-term interaction data previously collected in two study systems (in total: 5-year data on plant-pollinator interactions in 18 communities in Mallorca island; and 5-31-year data on plant-butterfly interactions in 20 Catalonian and Balearic communities). FUNLAND is structured around five work packages related to five specific objectives.  First, by using methodologies of network dynamics and probability matrices, we will investigate the effects of habitat loss and climate change on the spatio-temporal variation of interactions at the community level, and on the relative importance of phenological overlap and trait-matching determining the structure of interactions. Second, we will evaluate the role of intraspecific trait variability on community-level interactions.  For this, we will construct individual networks based on the pollen grains carried by pollinators and relate the role of individual pollinators to their functional traits. Besides, we will conduct observations focused on individual plants to understand how trait-matching between individual plants and their individual pollinators influences interactions and reproductive success. Third, we will use experimental shelters to simulate drought in the field and evaluate the role of floral plasticity on intraspecific variation, community-level interactions, and plant fitness, in a cross-combination of habitat loss and climate change experiment. Fourth, we will assess the link between the spatio-temporal changes in interactions and community stability and resilience. Particularly, using c. 30-year data of plant-butterfly of Catalonia, we will evaluate the ecological resilience of pollination communities, as well as the resistance and recovering of butterflies and their interactions against land-use and climatic disturbances in relation to species traits and interactions’ trait-matching. Fifth, using data on 18 communities of Mallorca, we will evaluate the extent to which function (seed production) is related to the stability of species, traits, and interactions in communities under land-use and climatic pressures. FUNLAND may suppose a significant advance in the understanding of the mechanisms that communities have to adapt to new anthropogenic changes, as it will show the extent to which intraspecific trait variability and niche flexibility may buffer the negative effects of land-use and climate pressures by increasing the stability, resilience and function of pollination interactions. Lastly, this project will shed light to the synergies between land-use and climate pressures affecting the pollination service.