Nectar plays a critical role in attracting pollinators, thereby facilitating pollination and the spread of pollen. Nectar traits like volume and sugar concentration are strongly influenced by environmental factors such as temperature and relative humidity. Yet, there is little understanding of how t

Climate change has brought intense disruptions to the natural patterns of growth and reproduction in sub-alpine ecosystems, generating changes to the food sources that Broad-tailed hummingbirds (Selasphorus platycerus), which breed in the Rocky Mountains, depend on. A hotter, dryer climate results i

Climate change is putting montane plant species at risk that rely on historical patterns of precipitation and snowmelt timing. Floral traits, such as nectar production and morphology can be impacted by water availability. Hybridization of plants has the potential to provide adaptation to climate cha

There is still much unknown about how microbes within flower nectars, specifically bacteria, impact pollinators. Hummingbirds use gustatory and visual cues to determine which flowers are most rewarding. The diversity in colonization of nectar-inhabiting microbes, such as bacteria, can alter the scen

Plant-pollinator networks shape the populations of flowering plants across the world. Ecosystems face increasing challenges that decrease floral density and threaten to restructure plant-pollinator networks. The responses of these networks will play a critical role in the fates of plant species, bec

Hummingbirds are known to select which floral resource to utilize based on visual and olfactory cues. The role that microbes play in mediating the mutualism between hummingbirds and flowers is mostly unexplored in the field of microbial and pollination ecology. Bee pollinators are known to be deterr

This paper will focus on Syrphidae, an understudied but potentially impactful pollinator. Specifically, I will investigate how the density of the pile (hair) affects the amount of pollen grains carried. This research has the potential to significantly contribute to the field of entomology, as it add

Our results suggest that floral traits can show different levels of plasticity to temperature changes in subalpine environments, with potential effects on animal behaviours that help or hinder plant reproduction. They also illustrate the need for more long-term field warming studies, as shown by res

Climate change is disrupting floral traits that mediate mutualistic and antagonistic species interactions. Plastic responses of these traits to multiple shifting conditions may be adaptive, depending on natural selection in new environments. We manipulated snowmelt date over three seasons (3-11 d ea

Our results show that even in communities where HPT is common, pre-zygotic post-pollination mechanisms do not provide strong barriers to interspecific fertilization. HPT can result in the loss of ovules even between highly diverged plant species.

Organisms inhabiting seasonal environments must fit their life cycle into a limited time window while also synchronizing periods of resource consumption with timing of resource availability. Introduced non‐native species, which often differ in phenology from natives, can alter and expand the seasona

Last modified: January 09, 2025 IntroductionThis dataset comprises all bee interactions indexed by Global Biotic Interactions (GloBI; Poelen et al. 2014). It is published quarterly by the Big Bee Project (Seltmann et al. 2021) to summarize all available knowledge about bee interactions from natural

Evolutionary adaptation can allow a population to persist in the face of a new environmental challenge. With many populations now threatened by environmental change, it is important to understand whether this process of evolutionary rescue is feasible under natural conditions, yet work on this topic

Biological interactions reliant on synchronized phenology are being thrown into disarray with warming temperatures and an earlier onset of spring. Migrating Broad-tailed Hummingbirds (Selasphorus platycercus) in Gothic, Colorado tend to arrive and breed in alignment with wildflower flowering phenolo

Animal pollination services are vital for plant reproduction, with approximately 90% of plant species benefitting from this mutualistic relationship. Nectar is one of the most common floral rewards offered by plants in exchange for pollination services. Similarly, nectar is vital for bumbles as they

The interaction network between pollinators, plants, and the microbes that inhabit them is not yet widely understood. Most studies of floral microbes have focused on the role of nectar yeasts (e.g., Metschnikowia reukaufii) in the behavior of bumblebee pollinators and how they affect the fitness of

Climate change has led to increasingly warm temperatures, which has caused the earlier snowmelt. This has caused shifts in timing of some plants' growing season and flowering, as well as pollinator emergence. On the other hand, Various pollinators respond to cues such as soil temperature which does