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Abstract
Background: The relative frequency of wind- and animal-pollinated plants a non-randomly distributed across the globe and numerous hypotheses have been raised for the greater occurrence of wind pollination in some habitats and towards higher latitudes. To date, however, there has been no comprehensive global investigation of these hypotheses.
Aims: Investigating a range of hypotheses for the role of biotic and abiotic factors as determinants of the global variation in animal vs. wind pollination.
Methods: We analysed 67 plant communities ranging from 70º north to 34º south. For these we determined habitat type, species richness, insularity, topographic heterogeneity, current climate and late-quaternary climate change. The predictive effects of these factors on the proportion of wind- and animal-pollinated plants were tested using correlations, ordinary least squares (OLS) and logistic regression analyses with information-theoretic model selection.
Results: The proportion of animal-pollinated plant species was positively associated with plant species richness and current temperature. Furthermore, in forest, animal pollination was positively related to precipitation. Historical climate was only weakly and idiosyncratically correlated with animal pollination.
Conclusion: Results were consistent with the hypothesised reduced chance for wind-transported pollen reaching conspecific flowers in species-rich communities, fewer constraints on nectar production in warm and wet habitats, and reduced relative effectiveness of wind dispersal in humid areas. There was little evidence of a legacy of historical climate change affecting these patterns.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Dr. Andrew Moldenke, who shared with us his great personal community assessments dataset, and to all the researchers who helped us during field work, pollination mode confirmation, community assessments and/or with extra data to perform this study. ARR was supported by FAPESP (2009/54491-0); CAPES (PDSE 0197/12-2); CNPq (140912/2010-0); Unicamp (FAEPEX 519292) and Santander Universities. BD and JS acknowledge the Danish National Research Foundation for funding the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate (grant-number DNRF96). JCS was supported by the European Research Council (ERC-2012-StG-310886-HISTFUNC). JO was supported by FAPESP; The Royal Society; The Leverhulme Trust; The British Ecological Society; Church and Co. PLC; EVOLINK; The Percy Sladen Memorial Fund; The Royal Entomological Society and the University of Northampton. NH was supported by the British Exploring Society.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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Notes on contributors
André Rodrigo Rech
André Rodrigo Rech is interested in the evolution of pollination mechanisms, plant–pollinator interactions and community organization of reproductive strategies.
Bo Dalsgaard
Bo Dalsgaard is interested in geographical patterns of biodiversity, especially how historical and contemporary climate influence mutualistic plant–animal interactions.
Brody Sandel
Brody Sandel is interested in the influence of long-term climate stability on plant and animal communities from local to macroecological scales.
Jesper Sonne
Jesper Sonne research interests cover a wide range within the fields of ornithology, evolution and macroecology. Jesper Sonne is particularly interested in neotropical bird communities and the importance of species interactions for patterns of biodiversity.
Jens-Christian Svenning
Jens-Christian Svenning is broadly interested in ecology and biogeography, with special focus on the impacts of past, present and future global change on biodiversity and ecosystems.
Naomi Holmes
Naomi Holmes is a palaeoecologist who interested in the impacts of environmental change on biota in high latitude/altitude environments.
Jeff Ollerton
Jeff Ollerton’s research interests span across the ecology, evolution and conservation of the Earth’s biodiversity, with a particular emphasis on plant–pollinator interactions.
