Pollinators in grassland plant communities along a landscape-scale land use intensity gradient

Description

Poster presentation

Abstract:
Pollinator declines in response to land-use intensification have raised concerns about the persistence of plant species dependent on insect pollination for their reproduction. Recent studies show that reduced pollinator abundance decreases seedling densities of insect-pollinated plants, which could potentially change the composition of grassland plant communities. To which extent and under which conditions this is the case, and which cascading effects on ecosystem functioning this may have, is yet unexplored. We investigate the effects of pollinator declines on grassland plant communities and ecosystem functions using a long-term experimental setup consisting of 18 sites along a land-use intensity gradient.
Here, we report:
1. Criteria used to select sites on the land-use intensity gradient
2. How this gradient correlates with pollinator abundance, diversity and activity as well as flower resource cover and herbivory in the selected sites
3. Effects of exclusion cages compared to control plots on pollination and herbivory

Period	2020 Nov 7
Event title	SCAPE 2020: 34th Annual Meeting of the Scandinavian Association of Pollination Ecology (SCAPE)
Event type	Conference
Location	Northhampton, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International