Plant generalization on pollinators: species property or local phenomenon?

摘要: Despite recent increased interest in the frequency and evolutionary consequences of generalization plant‐pollinator systems, little is known on whether plant pollinators actually a species-level trait. This paper addresses following questions for insect-pollinated shrub Lavandula latifolia: (1) Are different populations this pollinator-generalist similarly generalized? (2) Within highly generalized population, are all plants pollinator-generalists? Comparable values richness pollinator species were obtained from individual- or population-specific rarefaction curves as projected number distinct implicated 100 flower visits (S RAR100). Simple counts recorded per individual population OBS) weakly nonsignificantly correlated with corresponding S RAR100 figures closely visitation frequency. The pollination system L. latifolia was at regional level, but differed greatly (SRAR100). intensively studied, had quite variable degrees generalization, comparable magnitude to variation among populations. It concluded that not an invariant, property latifolia. Furthermore, diversity estimates based OBS data may be heavily contingent aspects related both research design (sampling effort) biological phenomena (variation abundance rates), which either mask distort underlying ecological patterns interest.