PS 27-85 - Do traits that predict plant-pollinator interactions vary between butterflies and moths?

Tuesday, August 16, 2022

5:00 PM – 6:30 PM EDT

Located in: ESA Exhibit Hall

Presenting Author(s)

RA

Rhea Amatya

University of California, Riverside
Riverside, California, United States

Coauthor(s)

ND

Natasha De Manincor

University of California, Riverside, United States
JC

Jailene Cruz

University of California, Riverside, United States
CC

Christopher T. Cosma

University of California, Riverside, United States

Background/Question/Methods

Ecological interaction networks, such as plant-pollinator networks, play an important role in shaping and maintaining biodiversity. However, we still have a limited understanding of which drivers explain species interactions and if they vary between different pollination networks. Moths and butterflies are both involved in pollination networks, and while the “pollination syndrome” approach points to a different suite of plant and insect traits that predict butterfly vs. moth pollination interactions, community-level studies reveal that species are not always constrained by these rules. Incorporating species traits (e.g., pollinator size and plant growth form) into ecological network models can assess the effect of extrinsic factors (e.g., functional traits), and intrinsic ones (linked to the network structure) to help disentangle the factors that drive interactions between organisms. Here, we combine a large dataset of California Lepidoptera-plant pollination interactions—including both butterflies and moths—with data gathered for plant and insect functional traits. We use dimensionality reduction approaches and redundancy analysis (RDA) with species traits as the predictor and species interactions as the response to compare which species traits predict interactions in butterfly vs. moth networks.

Results/Conclusions

Preliminary results reveal that interactions in each network are explained by at least two traits, and that these differ between moth and butterfly networks. In the moth-plant network, interactions are explained by moth size (R2adj = 0.025; p = 0.0021 **) and temporal activity (R2adj = 0.018; p = 2e-04 ***), and plant bloom phenology (R2adj = 0.008; p-value = 0.037 *). In the butterfly-plant network, interactions are explained by butterfly flight phenology (R2adj = 0.012; p = 3e-04 ***) and size (R2adj = 0.009; p = 0.001 ***). Since plant and insect morphology and phenology are shifting with climate change, we suggest that future studies investigating plant-Lepidoptera pollination networks in the context of global change should consider these traits. In future analyses we will incorporate additional plant traits (e.g., floral traits), Lepidoptera traits (e.g., voltinism), and information on habitat and phylogeny.