ClimateWeb is the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant (888339) supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program that enabled me to work at the Bascompte lab from 2020-2022. Below you can find the description of the results from this action.
- In the paper Hidden effects of habitat restoration on the persistence of plant-pollinator interactions (Gaiarsa & Bascompte, 2022, Ecology Letters) we explored how pollinator and plant species persistence is affected by restoration via the removal of invasive plant species. As expected, we found that restoration increased plant persistence. However, for pollinators, there was no difference between treatments in the early season, but we found a clear effect in late season, with higher persistence in unrestored sites. Thus, our results suggest a hidden effect of invasive plants—although they may compete with native plant species, invasive plants may provide important resources for pollinators, at least in the short term.
- In the paper Individual dietary specialization in bees varies across populations but has no effect on associated microbial communities (Gaiarsa et al., 2022, The American Naturalist) we used data from nests of a solitary bee species (Ceratina australensis) to explore the existence of individual variation in resource use within and across populations, and whether dietary specialization affects the richness of pollen-associated microbes. We found that populations were highly specialized, and that specialization varied across populations. In the most specialized population we show that individuals’ diet breadth was positively related to the richness of fungi but not bacteria. Overall, individual specialization appeared to have a weak or negligible effect on the microbial richness of nests, suggesting that different mechanisms beyond environmental transmission may be at play regarding microbial acquisition in wild bees.
- The last project we are working on combines climate change projections of plant species to phylogenetic data from animal species to explore how the phylogenetic diversity will be affected by climate change. Results soon to follow!