Does habitat loss affect the communities of plants and insects equally in plant-pollinator interactions? Preliminary findings

Habitat loss is a major threat to biodiversity and ecosystem function. As habitats are lost, one factor affecting their community structures is the niche-width demand of species, which ranges from specialist to generalist. This study focused on specialist and generalist species in plant-pollinator interactions and tested the hypothesis that plant and pollinator communities become more generalized as habitat loss increases. The study was made in seven selected sites in southern Ontario, Canada, at the level of landscape that is characterized by distributed forests within intensively managed agricultural fields. We quantified both the degree of habitat loss and the degree of specialization/generalization for each of the plant and insect communities using a sampling method of hexagonal transects. Regression analysis indicated a significant relationship between the increase of habitat loss and the shift to generalization in insect, but not in plant, communities. Our results suggest that, in plant-pollinator interactions, insect communities are more sensitive and/or quicker than plant communities to respond to the effects of habitat loss.