Major
Biology
Research Abstract
Understanding floral constancy is a vital tool used to establish foraging behavior among pollinators in urban and natural landscapes. Floral constancy is defined as the tendency of a pollinator to exclusively visit a specific floral species. Pollinators that show higher levels of floral constancy are more likely to transfer conspecific pollen. On the other hand, lower levels of floral constancy are associated with pollinators who transfer heterospecific pollen. We conducted two studies, the first aimed to find the effects of urbanization on plant-pollinator interactions. From our research, we were able to uncover a pattern that showed pollinators to carry a higher proportion of conspecific pollen than heterospecific pollen in urban sites as opposed to natural sites. However, the driving force of this pattern is unknown. Therefore, in our second study, we speculated that the distribution of plants may be responsible for increased conspecific pollen proportions in urban areas. We posed the following questions; Are plants more clumped in urban or natural areas? If so, how does that affect species foraging behavior? We hypothesize that based on the Optimal Foraging Theory, the idea that animals maximize energy input while minimizing energy expenditure, we would expect plants to be more clumped in urban areas than in natural areas. We anticipate that if our results support the hypothesis, we can assume that pollinators are foraging between closely clumped plant species. However, if our results do not align with our hypothesis, further investigation is necessary to identify the driving force of this pattern.
Faculty Mentor/Advisor
Sevan Suni
Included in
Effects of plant distribution on the foraging behavior of pollinators
Understanding floral constancy is a vital tool used to establish foraging behavior among pollinators in urban and natural landscapes. Floral constancy is defined as the tendency of a pollinator to exclusively visit a specific floral species. Pollinators that show higher levels of floral constancy are more likely to transfer conspecific pollen. On the other hand, lower levels of floral constancy are associated with pollinators who transfer heterospecific pollen. We conducted two studies, the first aimed to find the effects of urbanization on plant-pollinator interactions. From our research, we were able to uncover a pattern that showed pollinators to carry a higher proportion of conspecific pollen than heterospecific pollen in urban sites as opposed to natural sites. However, the driving force of this pattern is unknown. Therefore, in our second study, we speculated that the distribution of plants may be responsible for increased conspecific pollen proportions in urban areas. We posed the following questions; Are plants more clumped in urban or natural areas? If so, how does that affect species foraging behavior? We hypothesize that based on the Optimal Foraging Theory, the idea that animals maximize energy input while minimizing energy expenditure, we would expect plants to be more clumped in urban areas than in natural areas. We anticipate that if our results support the hypothesis, we can assume that pollinators are foraging between closely clumped plant species. However, if our results do not align with our hypothesis, further investigation is necessary to identify the driving force of this pattern.
