The impact of a native dominant plant, Euphorbia jolkinii, on plant–flower visitor networks and pollen deposition on stigmas of co-flowering species in subalpine meadows of Shangri-La, SW China

Zhao, Yan-Hui, Memmott, Jane, Vaughan, Ian P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7263-3822, Li, Hai-Dong, Ren, Zong-Xin, Lázaro, Amparo, Zhou, Wei, Xu, Xin, Wang, Wei-Jia, Liang, Huan, Li, De-Zhu, Wang, Hong and Mariotte, Pierre 2021. The impact of a native dominant plant, Euphorbia jolkinii, on plant–flower visitor networks and pollen deposition on stigmas of co-flowering species in subalpine meadows of Shangri-La, SW China. Journal of Ecology 109 (5) , pp. 2107-2120. 10.1111/1365-2745.13624

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Abstract

Anthropogenic activity can modify the distribution of species abundance in a community leading to the appearance of new dominant species. While many studies report that an alien plant species which becomes increasingly dominant can change species composition, plant–pollinator network structure and the reproductive output of native plant species, much less is known about native plant species which become dominant in their communities. Euphorbia jolkinii Boissier (Euphorbia, hereafter) has become a dominant native plant in the over-grazed meadows of Shangri-La, SW China. During the flowering season of Euphorbia and over 2 years, we quantified the impact of Euphorbia on plant richness and flower visitor richness in 12 subalpine meadows along a gradient of Euphorbia dominance. We also evaluated the floral preferences of flower visitors, interaction evenness of plant–flower visitor networks and the deposition of pollen on the stigmas of two co-flowering plant species (Gentiana chungtienensis and Anemone rupestris) in each meadow. The species richness of flower visitors to non-Euphorbia plants was negatively correlated with Euphorbia dominance. As the proportion of Euphorbia increases, flower visitors to Euphorbia decreased, while flower visitors to other co-flowering plants increased. Interaction evenness decreased as the proportion of Euphorbia increased. Furthermore, the conspecific pollen deposition of one of the two co-flowering plant species studied, G. chungtienensis, decreased as the proportion of Euphorbia increased. Synthesis. There appears to be little substantive difference between the impact of a newly dominant native plant and the impacts reported for many alien plants on native plant–pollinator communities. This lack of difference suggests that dominance, in addition to plant origin (alien vs. native), could play an important role in influencing the structure and functioning of native communities. This finding has considerable implications for restoration ecology. Thus, communities where natural dominance order has been changed due to anthropogenic activity may not be considered a problem as all the species are native—in reality though, they may be as damaged as communities invaded by alien species.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Biosciences
Publisher:	Wiley
ISSN:	0022-0477
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	18 June 2021
Date of Acceptance:	28 January 2021
Last Modified:	17 Nov 2024 11:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/141978

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