Effects of floral diversity and density on fly (<i>Diptera:Bombyliidae and Syrphidae</i>) floral foraging fidelity in subalpine meadows

Abstract

Foraging behavior of pollinators is an extensively researched topic. Research on bee, butterfly, and hummingbird foraging behavior has led to a greater understanding of the impacts of plant community composition on foraging behavior. This research has been further enhanced by fly foraging behavior and its importance in ecosystems. In order to determine the relationship flies have with the plant community we are examining the effects of flower species diversity and conspecific floral density on fly (Diptera: Syrphidae and Bombyliidae) foraging fidelity. Fly foraging fidelity was seen to be effected by both of these floral community characteristics. It was observed that as flower species diversity increased we saw a decrease in foraging fidelity. Also as conspecific floral density increased we observed an increase in foraging fidelity. Future topics of interest may involve the impact of these effects, conspecific floral densities and floral species diversity, on plant fitness along with other variables which may impact fly foraging fidelity.

Local Knowledge Graph (8 entities)

Related Works

Items connected by shared entities, co-authorship, citations, or semantic similarity.

References (10)

2 in Knowledge Hub, 8 external