Within Day Temporal Variation Within Plant-Pollinator Networks

Abstract

Plant-pollinator networks are useful tools for understanding species interactions and biodiversity. The structure of interactions within plant-pollinator networks have provided insight into the potential stability and persistence of ecological communities. Current studies of plant- pollinator networks have primarily focused on a temporally static view. These studies have given insight on general patterns within networks, however the temporally static view they take gives less insight on the various temporal scales at which interactions can change, form, and dissolve. If networks have temporally dependent variables, then constructing networks at different time scales can provide information on structural changes that could be overlooked at different temporal scales. Therefore we want to know if plant-pollinator networks change within a day. What we do know is that plant-pollinator network structure and stability can change over years and within seasons, but we know a lot less about the assembly and disassembly of interactions within days. By focusing on the temporal variation within a day, we improve our understanding of changes to structure and stability of plant-pollinator networks that are meaningful for plant and pollinator ecology. With the use of network metrics like nestedness, connectance, and specialization we can acquire empirical data to show whether there is change to the structure and stability of the network. We find that there seems to be changes occurring between the plant and pollinators, suggesting dynamic aspects.

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