Land-use legacies affect flower visitation network structure after forest restoration

Agricultural land use causes drastic changes to ecosystems, which persist
after agricultural activity has stopped. One way to mitigate these impacts
is through restoration of post-agricultural lands; however, the interplay
between agricultural history and restoration remains poorly understood.
This is particularly true for interactions among species. We investigated
the effect of experimental restoration of longleaf pine (Pinus palustris
Mill.) forests with differing land use histories on floral visitation
networks. We found that restoration of open canopy conditions caused
drastic increases in floral and floral visitor abundance and species
richness. We found that after restoration, plots with no history of
agriculture supported more specialized floral visitations and networks
than in post-agricultural plots. These results illustrate large positive
effects of forest restoration and flowering of understory plants and
floral visitation, along with a persistent agricultural land-use legacy
affecting the structure of floral visitation networks that is still
evident 66 years after agricultural abandonment.