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Foto på Liam Kendall, anställd på CEC

Liam Kendall

Forskare

Foto på Liam Kendall, anställd på CEC

The Interplay Between Visual Traits and Forest in Bumblebee Communities Across Sweden

Författare

  • Pierre Tichit
  • Liam Kendall
  • Peter Olsson
  • Gavin Taylor
  • Christoph Rau
  • Paul Caplat
  • Henrik G. Smith
  • Emily Baird

Summary, in English

Understanding how ecological communities assemble in relation to natural and human-induced environmental changes is critical, particularly for communities of pollinators that deliver essential ecosystem services. Despite widespread attention to interactions between functional traits and community responses to environmental changes, the importance of sensory traits has received little attention. To address this, we asked whether visual traits of bumblebee communities varied at large geographical scales along a habitat gradient of increased tree cover. Because trees generate challenging light conditions for flying insects, in particular a reduced light intensity, we hypothesised that differences in tree cover would correlate with shifts in the visual and taxonomical composition of bumblebee communities. We quantified 11 visual traits across 36 specimens from 20 species of bumblebees using micro-CT and optical modelling of compound eyes and ocelli, and investigated how these traits scale with body size. Using an inventory of bumblebee communities across Sweden and our visual trait dataset, we then explored how visual traits (both absolute and relative to body size) differed in relation to tree cover. We found positive shifts of the community weighted means of visual traits along the increasingly forested habitat gradient (facet diameter, inter-ommatidial angle, eye parameter of the compound eye and alignment of the three ocelli) that were consistent regardless of body size, while other traits decreased when more forest was present in the landscape (facet number). These functional patterns were associated with differences in the abundance of six common species that likely explains the community-wide shift of visual traits along the habitat gradient. Our study demonstrates the interaction between vision, habitat and community assembly in bumblebees, while highlighting a promising research topic at the interface between sensory biology and landscape ecology.

Avdelning/ar

  • Syngruppen
  • Functional zoology
  • Centrum för miljö- och klimatvetenskap (CEC)
  • BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate
  • Biodiversitet och bevarandevetenskap
  • LU profilområde: Naturbaserade framtidslösningar
  • Biodiversitet och evolution

Publiceringsår

2024-12

Språk

Engelska

Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie

Ecology and Evolution

Volym

14

Avvikelse

12

Dokumenttyp

Artikel i tidskrift

Förlag

Wiley-Blackwell

Ämne

  • Ecology (including Biodiversity Conservation)
  • Zoology

Nyckelord

  • animal senses
  • community assembly
  • compound eyes
  • functional ecology
  • X-ray microtomography

Aktiv

Published

Forskningsgrupp

  • Lund Vision Group
  • Biodiversity and Conservation Science

ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt

  • ISSN: 2045-7758