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Abstract Detail



Ecological Section

Robertshaw, Asya [1], Emery, Nancy [2].

Effects of Climate Change on Plant Reproductive Success in the Indiana Spring Ephemeral Community.

The reproductive success of many flowering plant species is heavily dependent upon pollinators, and pollinator dynamics are, in turn, influenced by the structure and flowering patterns of the plant community. Perturbations to these interactions – such as recent climate change events – can have impacts that percolate through the broader community network. An emerging body of literature is predicting that the responses of plant-insect interactions to climate change will be complex and will likely have large impacts on community structure and ecosystem function, and calls for increased study of these processes in natural systems. In this study, we examined the impacts of artificially elevated soil temperature on the flowering dynamics and reproductive success in Anemone acutiloba, a member of the spring ephemeral plant community of deciduous woodlands in Indiana. Individuals of A. acutiloba were transplanted into experimental plots, half of which were heated using cables buried around the periphery of each plot. Soil temperature was regulated with a differential feedback controller that maintained a constant temperature difference of 3-5°C between the heated and unheated plots. Within each plot, half of the plants received supplemental pollen and the other half only received pollen from insects. Preliminary results suggest that plants growing in warmer plots flowered 1-2 weeks earlier than those in unheated plots. Additionally, results of the pollen supplementation treatment revealed that A. acutiloba exhibited pollen limitation only in plots with the elevated temperature treatment. We suspect that interactions between A. acutiloba and its pollinators were altered in the warmer plots, possibly as a result of a temporal mismatch between plants and pollinators.


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1 - Purdue University, Botany And Plant Pathology, 915 W State St, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA
2 - Purdue University, Biological Sciences, and Botany & Plant Pathology, 915 West State Street, West Lafayette, IN, 47907-2054, United States

Keywords:
spring ephemerals
Climate change
flowering phenology
Anemone acutiloba
plant-pollinator interaction.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper:Papers for Sections
Session: 1
Location: Firs South/Boise Centre
Date: Monday, July 28th, 2014
Time: 8:45 AM
Number: 1004
Abstract ID:851
Candidate for Awards:Ecological Section Best Graduate Student Paper


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