Addition of nocturnal pollinators modifies the structure of pollination networks.

Although the ecological network approach has substantially contributed to the study of plant-pollinator interactions, current understanding of their functional structure is biased towards diurnal pollinators. Nocturnal pollinators have been systematically ignored despite the publication of several studies that have tried to alleviate this diurnal bias. Here, we explored whether adding this neglected group of pollinators had a relevant effect on the overall architecture of three high mountain plant-pollinator networks.

The role of intraspecific competition between plants in a nursery pollination system-Comments on Villacañas de Castro and Hoffmeister 2020.

We present comments on an article published by Villacañas de Castro and Hoffmeister (Ecology and Evolution, 10, 4220; 2020). The authors studied a tritrophic system composed of a plant, its pollinating seed predator, and a parasitoid of the latter. Their concern was whether the parasitoid modifies the interaction between the plant and its pollinator-herbivore along the mutualism-antagonism gradient, but they reduced their question to how the parasitoid impacts plant fitness.

How does climate change affect regeneration of Mediterranean high-mountain plants? An integration and synthesis of current knowledge.

Mediterranean mountains are extraordinarily diverse and hold a high proportion of endemic plants, but they are particularly vulnerable to climate change, and most species distribution models project drastic changes in community composition. Retrospective studies and long-term monitoring also highlight that Mediterranean high-mountain plants are suffering severe range contractions. The aim of this work is to review the current knowledge of climate change impacts on the process of plant regeneration by seed in Mediterranean high-mountain plants, by combining available information from observational and experimental studies.

Circadian rhythm of a Silene species favours nocturnal pollination and constrains diurnal visitation.

Background and Aims Traits related to flower advertisement and reward sometimes vary in a circadian way, reflecting phenotypic specialization. However, specialized flowers are not necessarily restricted to specialized pollinators. This is the case of most Silene species, typically associated with diurnal or nocturnal syndromes of pollination but usually showing complex suites of pollinators.

Diel Variation in Flower Scent Reveals Poor Consistency of Diurnal and Nocturnal Pollination Syndromes in Sileneae.

The composition of flower scent and the timing of emission are crucial for chemical communication between plants and their pollinators; hence, they are key traits for the characterization of pollination syndromes. In many plants, however, plants are assigned to a syndrome based on inexpensive to measure flower traits, such as color, time of flower opening, and shape. We compared day and night scents from 31 Sileneae species and tested for quantitative and semi-quantitative differences in scent among species classified a priori as diurnal or nocturnal.