Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Macroevolution for plant reproductive biologists
- 2 Pollination crisis, plant sex systems, and predicting evolutionary trends in attractiveness
- 3 Evolution and ecological implications of “specialized” pollinator rewards
- 4 Fig–fig wasp mutualism: the fall of the strict cospeciation paradigm?
- 5 Fossil bees and their plant associates
- 6 Pollen evidence for the pollination biology of early flowering plants
- 7 Pollinator mediated floral divergence in the absence of pollinator shifts
- 8 Animal pollination and speciation in plants: general mechanisms and examples from the orchids
- 9 Why are floral signals complex? An outline of functional hypotheses
- 10 A survey on pollination modes in cacti and a potential key innovation
- 11 Zygomorphy, area, and the latitudinal biodiversity gradient in angiosperms
- 12 Ambophily and “super generalism” in Ceratonia siliqua (Fabaceae) pollination
- 13 Structure and dynamics of pollination networks: the past, present, and future
- 14 Pollinators as drivers of plant distribution and assemblage into communities
- 15 Effects of alien species on plant–pollinator interactions: how can native plants adapt to changing pollination regimes?
- 16 Pollen resources of non-Apis bees in southern Africa
- 17 Advances in the study of the evolution of plant–pollinator relationships
- Index
- Plate section
- References
13 - Structure and dynamics of pollination networks: the past, present, and future
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Macroevolution for plant reproductive biologists
- 2 Pollination crisis, plant sex systems, and predicting evolutionary trends in attractiveness
- 3 Evolution and ecological implications of “specialized” pollinator rewards
- 4 Fig–fig wasp mutualism: the fall of the strict cospeciation paradigm?
- 5 Fossil bees and their plant associates
- 6 Pollen evidence for the pollination biology of early flowering plants
- 7 Pollinator mediated floral divergence in the absence of pollinator shifts
- 8 Animal pollination and speciation in plants: general mechanisms and examples from the orchids
- 9 Why are floral signals complex? An outline of functional hypotheses
- 10 A survey on pollination modes in cacti and a potential key innovation
- 11 Zygomorphy, area, and the latitudinal biodiversity gradient in angiosperms
- 12 Ambophily and “super generalism” in Ceratonia siliqua (Fabaceae) pollination
- 13 Structure and dynamics of pollination networks: the past, present, and future
- 14 Pollinators as drivers of plant distribution and assemblage into communities
- 15 Effects of alien species on plant–pollinator interactions: how can native plants adapt to changing pollination regimes?
- 16 Pollen resources of non-Apis bees in southern Africa
- 17 Advances in the study of the evolution of plant–pollinator relationships
- Index
- Plate section
- References
Summary
Introduction
By far, most studies in ecology are about single species and their interactions with the surroundings, and this is also true in pollination ecology. However, species are members of communities of interacting species, i.e. networks. According to our definition, a network only includes species, whose linkage is spatially unconstrained, i.e. species may potentially meet in nature.
During the last decade, this gap between 1-species ecological research and nature’s overwhelming complexity has rapidly been bridged by a new generation of studies taking place at the network level. These studies offer fascinating new insight into a kind of natural history, which we term link ecology. In the first section, we trace the roots of pollination network ecology. Then we describe what this discipline is doing today, and finally we attempt to predict what is coming up in the near future.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Evolution of Plant-Pollinator Relationships , pp. 374 - 391Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
References
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