A review of European studies on pollination networks and pollen limitation, and a case study designed to fill in a gap

Abstract

Anthropogenic environmental change disrupts interactions between plants and their animal pollinators. To assess the importance of different drivers, baseline information is needed on interaction networks and plant reproductive success around the world. We conducted a systematic literature review to determine the state of our knowledge on plant-pollinator interactions and the ecosystem services they provide for European ecosystems. We focussed on studies that published information on plant-pollinator networks, as a community-level assessment of plant-pollinator interactions and pollen limitation, which assesses the degree to which plant reproduction is limited by pollinator services. We found that the majority of our knowledge comes from Western Europe, and thus there is a need for baseline assessments in the traditional landscapes of Eastern Europe. To address this data gap, we quantified plant-pollinator interactions and conducted breeding system and pollen supplementation experiments in a traditionally managed mountain meadow in the Western Romanian Carpathians. We found the Romanian meadow to be highly diverse, with a healthy plant-pollinator network. Despite the presence of many pollinator-dependent plant species, there was no evidence of pollen limitation. Our study is the first to provide baseline information for a healthy meadow at the community level on both plant-pollinator interactions and their relationship with ecosystem function (e.g. plant reproduction) in an Eastern European country. Alongside the baseline data, we also provide recommendations for future research, and the methodological information needed for the continued monitoring and management of Eastern European meadows.