Nectar Robbers, Pollinators, and Plants: The Importance of Direct and Indirect Effects on Individuals and Communities

小行星9806501 进化生态学家的一个基本目标是了解物种之间的相互作用如何控制它们的丰度和设计。 近年来，植物与传粉者之间的相互作用受到了广泛的关注，这些研究对物种相互作用的生态学和进化产生了很大的影响。 然而，有些访花者并不为它们的寄主植物授粉，事实上，它们会造成严重的伤害。 其中一类动物是花蜜掠夺者-这种动物掠夺花朵的花蜜而不影响授粉。 本研究的重点是研究如何花蜜抢劫熊蜂，熊蜂oceanentalis，影响其亚高山宿主植物，猩红吉利亚（Ipomopsis aggregata）的成功，并间接影响其他成员的开花植物群落。该研究结合了操纵实验和观察来测试三个主要假设：（1）花蜜掠夺者影响蜂鸟授粉植物Scarlet gilia的已实现的雄性和雌性适合度，（2）已知在吸引传粉者中重要的花性状也吸引花蜜掠夺者，其因此可能介导花的进化，（3）花蜜掠夺通过改变蜂鸟传粉者对被掠夺和未被掠夺植物的行为，间接影响共现植物物种的成功。 这项工作是及时的，因为它解决了生态学家和进化生物学家长期感兴趣的问题，即，多个物种相互作用的重要性及其相互间的直接和间接影响。这项工作也具有应用意义，在了解多个物种的相互作用联合收割机如何影响动物授粉植物的种子生产，它们的花的进化，和社区水平的动态。

9806501 Alison Brody A fundamental goal of evolutionary ecologists is to understand how interactions among species govern their abundance and design. The interactions among plants and their pollinators have received considerable attention over the years and these studies have yielded much insight into the ecology and evolution of species interactions. However, some floral visitors do not pollinate their host plants and, in fact, can do significant harm. One such group of animals is nectar robbers -- animals that rob flowers of nectar without effecting pollination. The focus of this study is to examine how a nectar robbing bumblebee, Bombus occidentalis, affects the success of its sub-alpine host plant, scarlet gilia (Ipomopsis aggregata), and indirectly affects other members of the flowering plant community. The research combines manipulative experiments with observations to test three overarching hypotheses: (1) nectar robbers affect realized male and female fitness of the hummingbird-pollinated plant, scarlet gilia, (2) floral traits known to be important in attracting pollinators also attract nectar robbers which may thus mediate floral evolution, and (3) nectar robbing indirectly affects the success of co-occurring plant species by changing the behavior of hummingbird pollinators toward robbed and unrobbed plants. The work is timely in that it addresses a question of long-standing interest to ecologists and evolutionary biologists, i.e., the importance of multiple species interactions and their direct and indirect effects on each other. The work also has applied significance in understanding how multiple species interactions combine to affect the seed production of animal pollinated plants, their floral evolution, and community-level dynamics.