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      Pollinator competition and the contingency of nectar depletion during an early spring resource pulse

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          Abstract

          Concerns about competition between pollinators are predicated on the assumption of floral resource limitation. Floral resource limitation, however, is a complex phenomenon involving the interplay of resource production by plants, resource demand by pollinators, and exogenous factors—like weather conditions—that constrain both plants and pollinators. In this study, we examined nectar limitation during the mass flowering of rosaceous fruit trees in early spring. Our study was set in the same region as a previous study that found severe nectar limitation in summer grasslands. We used this seasonal contrast to evaluate two alternative hypotheses concerning the seasonal dynamics of floral resource limitation: either (H1) rates of resource production and consumption are matched through seasonal time to maintain a consistent degree of resource limitation, or (H2) a mismatch of high floral resource production and low pollinator activity in early spring creates a period of relaxed resource limitation that intensifies later in the year. We found generally much lower depletion in our spring study compared to the near 100% depletion found in the summer study, but depletion rates varied markedly through diel time and across sampling days, with afternoon depletion rates sometimes exceeding 80%. In some cases, there were also pronounced differences in depletion rates across simultaneously sampled floral species, indicating different degrees of nectar exploitation. These findings generally support the seasonal mismatch hypothesis (H2) but underscore the complex contingency of nectar depletion. The challenge of future work is to discern how the fluctuation of resource limitation across diel, inter‐diel, and seasonal time scales translates into population‐level outcomes for pollinators.

          Abstract

          Resource competition is predicated on resource limitation, which can be represented by the proxy of resource depletion rate. We used a pollinator exclusion experiment to estimate nectar depletion rates in an orchard meadow landscape during the early spring flowering of rosaceous trees. In contrast to our recent work in summer grasslands, we found relatively low depletion rates, suggesting that in spring, abiotic conditions (temperature, precipitation) are more important than competition as constraints on pollinator fitness.

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            brms: An R Package for Bayesian Multilevel Models Using Stan

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              Positive interactions in communities.

              Current concepts of the role of interspecific interactions in communities have been shaped by a profusion of experimental studies of interspecific competition over the past few decades. Evidence for the importance of positive interactions - facilitations - in community organization and dynamics has accrued to the point where it warrants formal inclusion into community ecology theory, as it has been in evolutionary biology. Copyright © 1994. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                douglas.sponsler@uni-wuerzburg.de
                Journal
                Ecol Evol
                Ecol Evol
                10.1002/(ISSN)2045-7758
                ECE3
                Ecology and Evolution
                John Wiley and Sons Inc. (Hoboken )
                2045-7758
                18 June 2024
                June 2024
                : 14
                : 6 ( doiID: 10.1002/ece3.v14.6 )
                : e11531
                Affiliations
                [ 1 ] Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Biocenter University of Würzburg Würzburg Germany
                Author notes
                [*] [* ] Correspondence

                Douglas B. Sponsler, Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Biocenter, University of Würzburg, Biozentrum C‐018, Am Hubland, 97074 Würzburg, Germany.

                Email: douglas.sponsler@ 123456uni-wuerzburg.de

                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4892-9332
                Article
                ECE311531 ECE-2024-01-00082.R1
                10.1002/ece3.11531
                11183943
                38895567
                8040bd4f-3c6b-46e8-ae07-fa8b77043a07
                © 2024 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

                This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                : 30 April 2024
                : 18 January 2024
                : 15 May 2024
                Page count
                Figures: 4, Tables: 0, Pages: 9, Words: 6200
                Funding
                Funded by: European Union Horizon 2020
                Award ID: 101003476
                Categories
                Applied Ecology
                Behavioural Ecology
                Biodiversity Ecology
                Botany
                Community Ecology
                Conservation Ecology
                Entomology
                Evolutionary Ecology
                Phenology
                Theorectical Ecology
                Trophic Interactions
                Research Article
                Research Articles
                Custom metadata
                2.0
                June 2024
                Converter:WILEY_ML3GV2_TO_JATSPMC version:6.4.4 mode:remove_FC converted:18.06.2024

                Evolutionary Biology
                coexistence,competition,nectar,pollinator,trophic ecology
                Evolutionary Biology
                coexistence, competition, nectar, pollinator, trophic ecology

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