Species Interactions in Changing Environments:
Plant-Pollinator Biodiversity and Community Assembly across Scales

Why does environmental change alter biodiversity and species interactions?

Plant-pollinator interaction in the
Northern Rocky Mountains, Montana
(Photo: Laura Burkle)

Among the threats posed to biodiversity by global environmental change, changes in natural disturbance regimes and net-primary productivity are likely to have some of the most profound impacts on plants and animals and the ecosystem services they provide. Although ecologists have excelled at investigating how individual species and some local communities respond to disturbance and productivity, little is known about the way in which complex networks of species interactions respond to environmental change, nor the ways in which species-interaction networks assemble across different biogeographic regions. In collaboration with Laura Burkle (Montana State University) and Travis Belote (The Wilderness Society), we are investigating why changes in wildfire disturbance and productivity influence spatial and temporal variation in plant-pollinator community composition (β-diversity), mechanisms of plant-pollinator community assembly, variation in plant-pollinator interactions (interaction β-diversity), and ecosystem services (pollination). We are addressing these questions across a large-scale productivity gradient in the Northern Rocky Mountains, a biogeographically diverse region of critical conservation importance. A major goal of this NSF-funded project (DEB 1256788, DEB 1256819) is to enhance mechanistic understanding of community assembly, mutualistic species interactions, and ecosystem services following disturbance at the large spatial scales most germane to conservation and management in naturally heterogeneous landscapes.
Related Publications

*Burkle, Laura A., Jonathan A. Myers & R. Travis Belote. 2016. The beta-diversity of species interactions: Untangling the drivers of geographic variation in plant-pollinator diversity and function across scales. American Journal of Botany 103: 118-28.     Abstract     PDF

*Invited Paper for Species Issue: Evolutionary Insights from Studies of Geographic Variation

Burkle, Laura A., Jonathan A. Myers & R. Travis Belote. 2015. Wildfire disturbance and productivity as drivers of plant species diversity across spatial scales. Ecosphere 6:art202     Abstract     PDF

*Burkle, Laura A., Michael P. Simanonok, J. Simone Durney, Jonathan A. Myers & R. Travis Belote. 2019. Wildfires influence abundance, diversity, and intraspecific and interspecific trait variation of native bees and flowering plants across burned and unburned landscapes. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 7: 252.     Abstract     PDF

*Invited Paper for Species Issue: Arthropod Interactions and Responses to Disturbance in a Changing World     

LaManna, Joseph A., R. Travis Belote, Laura A. Burkle, Christopher P. Catano & Jonathan A. Myers. 2017. Negative density dependence mediates biodiversity-productivity relationships across scales. Nature Ecology & Evolution 1: 1107-1115.     Abstract     PDF

Myers, Jonathan A., Jonathan M. Chase, Raelene M. Crandall & Iván Jiménez. 2015. Disturbance alters beta-diversity but not the relative importance of community assembly mechanisms. Journal of Ecology 103: 1291-1299.     Abstract     PDF     Data     Cover Article

*Myers, Jonathan A. & Joseph A. LaManna. 2016. The promise and pitfalls of beta-diversity in ecology and conservation. Journal of Vegetation Science 27: 1081-1083.     Abstract     PDF     *Invited Commentary Paper

Catano, Christopher P., Timothy L. Dickson & Jonathan A. Myers. 2017. Dispersal and neutral sampling mediate contingent effects of disturbance on plant beta-diversity: A meta-analysis. Ecology Letters 20: 347-356.     Abstract     PDF     Supporting Information     Cover Article

Study Sites

Our study sites in the Northern Rockies include: 1) low-productivity, ponderosa-pine dominated forests and woodlands in Helena, Montana; 2) medium productivity, lodgepole-pine and Douglas-fir forests in Paradise Valley, Montana; and 3) high-productivity, western-larch, lodgepole-pine and mixed-conifer forests in Whitefish, Montana.

Sites with contrasting wildfire histories replicated across a net-primary productivity (NPP) gradient in the Northern Rockies, Montana (Map credit: Travis Belote)

Fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium [Onagraceae]), Yellowstone National Park, Montana (Photo: J. Myers)

Disturbance, Productivity &
Plant-Pollinator Biodiversity Team,
Helena, Montana (May 2013)

Photo Gallery

This gallery (*coming soon*) includes images from:

  • Helena, Montana
  • Glacier National Park, Montana
  • Whitefish, Montana
  • Yellowstone National Park, Montana

Education, Outreach, and Training

Our research advances understanding of how and why wildfire affects conservation, land management, and restoration of forest ecosystems in the mountain West. Billions of dollars are spent annually to suppress wildfires and to protect the livelihoods of human societies within fire-prone landscapes. Simultaneously, huge investments are devoted to restoring fire without clear understanding of how it influences plant-pollinator interactions and pollination services. By sharing our findings with federal land managers across the region, we have contributed ecological science to management plans, with the dual aim of maintaining biodiversity of plants and pollinators while restoring environmental complexity representative of historical fire regimes. Our research team has also contributed to scientific outreach by teaching a course in fire ecology and organizing an R Basics Workshop for students and early-career scientists, participating in a special session of the Montana Forest Collaboration Network (MFCN), and mentoring Native American students through the Hopa Mountain Native Science Fellows Program.

Acknowledgements

We thank the Montana Forest Collaboration Network (MFCN) and the National Science Foundation (DEB 1256788, DEB 1256819) for supporting our research.