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Flowers for habitat enhancement primarily benefit common insect pollinators across temperate grasslands

Will Glenny,Jose B. Lanuza,Demetra Rakosy,E. Ladouceur,Yuping Zhong,Tiffany M. Knight

Published 2025 in Journal of Applied Ecology

ABSTRACT

Pollinator habitat enhancement typically relies on flowering species that are possible to cultivate and produce in large quantities, instead of species that fulfil valuable functional roles for plant–pollinator interaction diversity. Using plant–pollinator interaction data from 673 plant–pollinator networks within 17 different studies in temperate grasslands of Europe, we evaluated if native plant genera that are readily available from commercial seed suppliers frequently occur across plant–pollinator networks, are attractive to pollinators and support pollinator assemblages that occupy complementary functional roles in interaction space. Readily available flowers frequently occurred across plant–pollinator networks and were attractive to pollinators. On average, only 8.29 (SE = 0.90) readily available plant genera were required to support most of the pollinator species across all the studies analysed here, compared to 11.53 (SE = 1.64) plant genera with limited availability. However, they fulfilled redundant functional roles within communities by supporting overlapping assemblages of abundant pollinators. Simulated flower mixes of native plant genera that frequently occurred across pollinator networks supported fewer rare and less‐selective pollinators than a random selection of plant genera, indicating that revegetation may result in the functional homogenization of pollinator communities. Synthesis and applications : Flowers that are attractive and occupy a complementary position in interaction space could be prioritized in flower mixes to recover rare and specialized pollinators. By defining the ecological roles of readily available plants in plant–pollinator networks, particularly those that receive high visitation rates from complementary pollinator communities, this study provides a practical guide for conserving pollinators with ecologically informed restoration practices.

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