Deer overpopulation has negative cascading effects that reduce plant and pollinator abundances, disrupting important mutualistic networks. However, the impacts of overbrowsing on plant-pollinator interactions in unique ecosystems are largely unknown. This research uses deer exclusion plots, , pan traps, visual surveys, and wildlife cameras to examine how deer overpopulation impacts plant-pollinator interactions in a unique eastern serpentine grassland.
Results/Conclusions
Deer were indicated to have significant negative impact on a variety of plant characters, including number of flowering plants, number of flowers, and plant height. Our research showed that under conditions of higher deer density, the negative impact on plants was more significant. A higher diversity of pollinators were additionally caught in pan traps within deer exclusion plots. To conserve rare species, we must understand how they fit into a larger ecological context. It’s not only important to understand how an organism responds to disturbance, it is also imperative to understand how the species that organism interacts with and relies on responds to the same disturbance. This research fills major gap in knowledge relating the effects of deer and overbrowsing on grassland plant and pollinator species which can be directly applied to management and conservation decisions at rare ecosystems, including serpentine barrens and granite outcroppings occurring across the eastern United States.