Species turnover in plants does not predict turnover in flower-visiting insects
Date
2018
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
PeerJ
Abstract
Congruence between plant and insect diversity is considered possibly useful in
conservation planning, as the better known plants could be surrogates for the
lesser known insects. There has been little quantification of congruence across space,
especially in biodiversity rich areas. We compare here species richness, and turnover
relationships between plants and flower-visiting insects across space (0.5–80 km)
in natural areas of a biodiversity hotspot, the Greater Cape Floristic Region,
South Africa. A total of 22,352 anthophile individuals in 198 species and 348 plant
species were sampled. A comparison between the plants and anthophiles suggest
significant concordance between the two assemblages. However, turnover was weaker in
plants than in anthophiles. Plant turnover decreased with greater geographical distance
between plot pairs. In contrast, insect turnover remained high with increasing
geographical distance between plot pairs. These findings suggest that while patterns
of plant diversity and distribution shape flower-visiting insect assemblages, they
are not reliable surrogates. The conservation significance of these results is that specialist
mutualisms are at greatest risk, and that set-asides on farms would help improve
the functional connectivity leading to the maintenance of the full range of mutualisms.
Description
CITATION: Simaika, J. P., Samways, M. & Vrdoljak, S. M. 2018. Species turnover in plants does not predict turnover in flower-visiting insects. PeerJ, 6:e6139, doi:10.7717/peerj.6139.
The original publication is available at https://peerj.com
The original publication is available at https://peerj.com
Keywords
Insect conservation
Citation
Simaika, J. P., Samways, M. & Vrdoljak, S. M. 2018. Species turnover in plants does not predict turnover in flower-visiting insects. PeerJ, 6:e6139, doi:10.7717/peerj.6139