Milner, James R.D., Bloom, Elias H., Crowder, David W., and Northfield, Tobin D. (2020) Plant evolution can mediate negative effects from honey bees on wild pollinators. Ecology and Evolution, 10 (10). pp. 4407-4418.

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Abstract

Pollinators are introduced to agroecosystems to provide pollination services. Introductions of managed pollinators often promote ecosystem services, but it remains largely unknown whether they also affect evolutionary mutualisms between wild pollinators and plants.

Here, we developed a model to assess effects of managed honey bees on mutualisms between plants and wild pollinators. Our model tracked how interactions among wild pollinators and honey bees affected pollinator and plant populations.

We show that when managed honey bees have a competitive advantage over wild pollinators, or a greater carrying capacity, the honey bees displace the wild pollinator. This leads to reduced plant density because plants benefit less by visits from honey bees than wild pollinators that coevolved with the plants.

As wild pollinators are displaced, plants evolve by increasing investment in traits that are attractive for honey bees but not wild pollinators. This evolutionary switch promotes wild pollinator displacement. However, higher mutualism investment costs by the plant to the honey bee can promote pollinator coexistence.

Our results show plant evolution can promote displacement of wild pollinators by managed honey bees, while limited plant evolution may lead to pollinator coexistence. More broadly, effects of honey bees on wild pollinators in agroecosystems, and effects on ecosystem services, may depend on the capacity of plant populations to evolve.

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