Consumer-Resource Interactions: Impacts of a plant invasion on the individual and colony performance of a native pollinator

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Invasive species are a leading component of environmental change and a major factor associated with biodiversity loss worldwide. There is growing recognition that plant invaders can affect competitive and mutualistic interactions among native species, but most work has considered only the direct effects of invaders on native plants. How invasive plants affect the performance of native pollinators has received little attention, representing a critical gap in the study of how invaders affect native biodiversity. This project will combine observational and manipulative studies to examine how a dominant invasive flowering plant in the western USA, Linaria vulgaris, affects the performance and abundance of native bee pollinators. The work will also test the degree to which short-term and long-term management of the invasive plant affect pollinator foraging and reproduction, with potential feedback to the pollination and reproduction of native flowering species. By incorporating the effects of an invasive plant on the performance of a native pollinator, this research moves beyond a primarily plant-centered approach to the study of invasive plants on pollination mutualismsWorldwide, 90% of approximately 300,000 flowering plant species rely on insects or other animals for pollination service, and the conservation of pollinators has both ecological and economic importance for native plant and crop pollination. Given the widespread abundance of pollination mutualisms and the role of pollinators in conferring critical ecosystem services, this research has broad implications for biodiversity, pollination of native and agricultural plants, and feedbacks to other organisms that rely on flowering plants for forage, habitat, and protection. This project will couple the active process of discovery with educational opportunities for K-6, undergraduate, and graduate students at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado. To increase public awareness of native pollinators and invasive plant species this project will create an exhibit to be displayed at a local museum.