Plant-pollinator interactions are dynamic in time and space. Recognizing the attributes of interactions that persist in time and space is important for network stability and for predicting vulnerability to interactions loss. Interactions that are more generalized, near the core of the nested interaction network, are lynchpins for maintaining network structure and function and have been found to occur more consistently across isolated habitats and across years in separate studies. However, the mechanisms for such persistence across spatiotemporal scales are not well understood. To address this knowledge gap, we collected data on plant-pollinator interactions throughout the flowering period for five years across six plots in a sub-alpine meadow in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.
Results/Conclusions
We found that interactions that were near the network core were more persistent across the five years, more persistent within seasons (i.e., they had longer phenophases), and more persistent across space (i.e., they were more widely distributed across sampling plots). Interactions that with higher inter-annual persistence tended to be have longer phenophases and be more widespread among plots and interactions with longer phenophases tended to be more widespread among plots. Tolerance of environmental variation across time and space likely plays a key role for species’ ability to be generalists in their community due to spatiotemporal overlap with partners. These results provide further mechanistic understanding of interaction stability by linking the role of environmental variation in time and space in organizing interactions thus marrying niche concepts that emphasize species environmental constraints and their role in the community.