D3087: Does trait-matching predict plant-pollinator interactions across urban gradients?

Pollinators are an invaluable ecosystem service provider, maintaining plant diversity in natural areas and contributing significantly to agricultural production. However, pollinators are declining globally, with urbanization being a major factor. Urban drivers, such as fragmentation affect not only pollinator abundance, but also filter species distribution according to traits. Understanding how traits filtered by urban drivers affect plant-pollinator interactions across urban gradient is therefore imperative. This study will evaluate how landscape and local factors in pollinator gardens affect plant-pollinator network structure and properties, pollinator beta diversity and trait-matching between pollinators and flowering plants. This study will be conducted in twelve pollinator gardens around central Arkansas. Pollinator gardens will be established along a gradient of urban development, broadly classified into urban, suburban and rural areas based on the proportion of landscape imperviousness at 250 m around each garden. During each sampling period, plant-pollinator interactions will be recorded over a 15-minute period via meandering walk, and a phytocentric approach will be used to identify and record plant-pollinator interactions. Floral traits, abundance and diversity will also be recorded per site per sampling period. Higher abundance of exotic and generalist species are expected in plant-pollinator interactions recorded in core urban habitats, while rural areas are expected to have a mix of native specialist and generalist species. Urban, suburban, and rural sites are expected to have a higher beta diversity indicating a dissimilarity in species composition, and trait-matching is expected to be higher in rural and suburban areas.