Dataset Information

Variation in context-dependent foraging behavior across pollinators.

ABSTRACT: Pollinator foraging behavior has direct consequences for plant reproduction and has been implicated in driving floral trait evolution. Exploring the degree to which pollinators exhibit flexibility in foraging behavior will add to a mechanistic understanding of how pollinators can impose selection on plant traits. Although plants have evolved suites of floral traits to attract pollinators, flower color is a particularly important aspect of the floral display. Some pollinators show strong innate color preference, but many pollinators display flexibility in preference due to learning associations between rewards and color, or due to variable perception of color in different environments or plant communities. This study examines the flexibility in flower color preference of two groups of native butterfly pollinators under natural field conditions. We find that pipevine swallowtails (Battus philenor) and skippers (family Hesperiidae), the predominate pollinators of the two native Texas Phlox species, Phlox cuspidata and Phlox drummondii, display distinct patterns of color preferences across different contexts. Pipevine swallowtails exhibit highly flexible color preferences and likely utilize other floral traits to make foraging decisions. In contrast, skippers have consistent color preferences and likely use flower color as a primary cue for foraging. As a result of this variation in color preference flexibility, the two pollinator groups impose concordant selection on flower color in some contexts but discordant selection in other contexts. This variability could have profound implications for how flower traits respond to pollinator-mediated selection. Our findings suggest that studying dynamics of behavior in natural field conditions is important for understanding plant-pollinator interactions.

SUBMITTER: Briggs HM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6144987 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Variation in context-dependent foraging behavior across pollinators.

Briggs Heather M HM Graham Stuart S Switzer Callin M CM Hopkins Robin R

Ecology and evolution 20180716 16

Pollinator foraging behavior has direct consequences for plant reproduction and has been implicated in driving floral trait evolution. Exploring the degree to which pollinators exhibit flexibility in foraging behavior will add to a mechanistic understanding of how pollinators can impose selection on plant traits. Although plants have evolved suites of floral traits to attract pollinators, flower color is a particularly important aspect of the floral display. Some pollinators show strong innate c ...[more]

PMID: 30250676

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Project description:Pollinators and the pollination services they provide are critical for seed set and self-sustainability of most flowering plants. Despite this, pollinators are rarely assessed in restored plant communities, where their services are largely assumed to re-establish. Bird-pollinator richness, foraging, and interaction behavior were compared between natural and restored Banksia woodland sites in Western Australia to assess their re-establishment in restored sites. These parameters were measured for natural communities of varying size and degree of fragmentation, and restored plant communities of high and low complexity for three years, in the summer and winter flowering of Banksia attenuata and B. menziesii, respectively. Bird visitor communities varied in composition, richness, foraging movement distances, and aggression among sites. Bird richness and abundance were lowest in fragmented remnants. Differences in the composition were associated with the size and degree of fragmentation in natural sites, but this did not differ between seasons. Restored sites and their adjacent natural sites had similar species composition, suggesting proximity supports pollinator re-establishment. Pollinator foraging movements were influenced by the territorial behavior of different species. Using a network analysis approach, we found foraging behavior varied, with more frequent aggressive chases observed in restored sites, resulting in more movements out of the survey areas, than observed in natural sites. Aggressors were larger-bodied Western Wattlebirds (Anthochaera chrysoptera) and New Holland Honeyeaters (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae) that dominated nectar resources, particularly in winter. Restored sites had re-established pollination services, albeit with clear differences, as the degree of variability in the composition and behavior of bird pollinators for Banksias in the natural sites created a broad completion target against which restored sites were assessed. The abundance, diversity, and behavior of pollinator services to remnant and restored Banksia woodland sites were impacted by the size and degree of fragmentation, which in turn influenced bird-pollinator composition, and were further influenced by seasonal changes between summer and winter. Consideration of the spatial and temporal landscape context of restored sites, along with plant community diversity, is needed to ensure the maintenance of the effective movement of pollinators between natural remnant woodlands and restored sites.

Project description:Foraging animals typically encounter opportunities that they either pursue or skip, but occasionally meet several alternatives simultaneously. Behavioural ecologists predict preferences using absolute properties of each option, while decision theorists focus on relative evaluations at the time of choice. We use European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) to integrate ecological reasoning with decision models, linking and testing hypotheses for value acquisition and choice mechanism. We hypothesise that options' values depend jointly on absolute attributes, learning context, and subject's state. In simultaneous choices, preference could result either from comparing subjective values using deliberation time, or from processing each alternative independently, without relative comparisons. The combination of the value acquisition hypothesis and independent processing at choice time has been called the Sequential Choice Model. We test this model with options equated in absolute properties to exclude the possibility of preference being built at the time of choice. Starlings learned to obtain food by responding to four stimuli in two contexts. In context [AB], they encountered options A5 or B10 in random alternation; in context [CD], they met C10 or D20. Delay to food is denoted, in seconds, by the suffixes. Observed latency to respond (Li) to each option alone (our measure of value) ranked thus: LA≈LC<LB<<LD, consistently with value being sensitive to both delay and learning context. We then introduced simultaneous presentations of A5 vs. C10 and B10 vs. C10, using latencies in no-choice tests to predict sign and strength of preference in pairings. Starlings preferred A5 over C10 and C10 over B10. There was no detectable evaluation time, and preference magnitude was predictable from latency differentials. This implies that value reflects learning rather than choice context, that preferences are not constructed by relative judgements at the time of choice, and that mechanisms adapted for sequential decisions are effective to predict choice behaviour.

Dataset Information

Variation in context-dependent foraging behavior across pollinators.

Publications

Variation in context-dependent foraging behavior across pollinators.

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