Plant and insect traits jointly mediate flower visitation patterns

Interactions among species shape ecological communities. When interactions shift, it can transform ecological communities; therefore, it is important to understand the mechanisms that drive species’ interactions. Each species possesses a suite of traits that mediate interactions. Trait matching, or the extent to which traits of the species participating in an interaction complement each other, dictates whether or not an interaction occurs. How traits drive interactions is relatively well documented within aquatic invertebrate food webs, but is less understood for other types of interactions like mutualisms. I focused on the pollination mutualism, where animals receive food in exchange for facilitating gamete transfer between plants. Insects are the primary facilitators of this mutualism. I determined how plant and insect traits jointly mediate plant-insect interactions. I focused on a subset of flower-visiting insects: bees and wasps. Compared to bees, wasps are less studied as pollinators and their floral preferences are poorly understood. Because bees and wasps differ in traits related to dispersal ability and feeding, I hypothesized that these differences in traits must drive distinct floral interaction patterns. I examined plant traits associated with pollinator attraction (flower morphometrics, color, and morphology) and insect morphological traits linked to feeding and dispersal (body size, intertegular distance, wing length, and mouthpart type). I determined how these traits predict interaction patterns and preferences between plants and their pollinators. Understanding how traits drive plant-insect interactions is particularly important as environmental change alters ecological communities.