Soil eutrophication shaped the composition of pollinator assemblages during the past century
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2020
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Atmospheric nitrogen deposition and other sources of environmental eutrophication
have increased substantially over the past century worldwide, notwithstanding the
recent declining trends in Europe. Despite the recognized susceptibility of plants to
eutrophication, few studies evaluated how impacts propagate to consumers, such as
pollinators. Here we aim to test if soil eutrophication contributes to the temporal
dynamics of pollinators and their larval resources.
We used a temporally and spatially explicit historical dataset with information on
species occurrences to test if soil eutrophication, and more specifically nitrogen deposition,
contributes to the patterns of change of plant and pollinator richness in the
Netherlands over an 80 yr period. We focus on bees and butterflies, two groups for
which we have good knowledge of larval resources that allowed us to define groups of
species with different nitrogen related diet preferences. For each group we estimated
richness changes between different 20-yr periods at local, regional and national scale,
using analytical methods developed for analyzing richness changes based on collection
data.
Our findings suggest that the impacts of soil eutrophication on plant communities
propagate to higher trophic levels, but with a time-lag. Pollinators with nitrogenrelated
diet preferences were particularly affected, in turn potentially impairing the
performance of pollinator-dependent plants. Pollinator declines continued even after
their focal plants started to recover. In addition, our results suggest that current levels of nitrogen deposition still have a negative impact on most groups here analyzed, constraining richness recoveries and accentuating declines.
Our results indicate that the global increase in nitrogen availability plays an important role in the ongoing pollinator decline. Consequently, species tolerances to soil nitrogen levels should be considered across all trophic levels in management plans that aim to halt biodiversity loss and enhance ecosystems services worldwide.
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Extinction debt, Herbivory, Historical biodiversity changes, Pollinator communities, Nitrogen deposition, Nitrophily
Citação
CARVALHEIRO, Luísa G. et al. Soil eutrophication shaped the composition of pollinator assemblages during the past century. Ecography, Copenhaguem, v. 43, n. 2, p. 209-221, 2020. DOI: 10.1111/ecog.04656. Disponível em: https://onlinelibrary-wiley.ez49.periodicos.capes.gov.br/doi/10.1111/ecog.04656. Acesso em: 13 jan. 2023.