Diet analysis of hummingbirds across the California Floristic Province

The proposed project, MSB-ECA: Local and Migratory Spatial Foraging Affects Plant-Pollinator-Pathogen Networks, is headed by Erin Wilson Rankin working with co-PIs, Christopher Clark and Quinn McFrederick, from the University of California-Riverside (UCR). The project examines interactions at the floral interface?how local foraging of pollinators at the nectary scale up to drive regional and continental patterns of plant-pollinator-pathogen networks. Floral resources are utilized by a broad range of species, and each floral visit presents the opportunity to both obtain and transfer microbes. Quantitative network models will be developed by combining phenology, plant diversity and abundance data with experimental, spatially replicated data on species interactions generated from direct observations and next-generation sequencing (NGS). In a novel approach, researchers will then incorporate plant-pollinator and pollinator-pathogen interactions to create plant-pollinator-pathogen networks. The resulting networks will be documented across a large geographic area comprising a global biodiversity hotspot, the California Floristic Province, which also experiences annual continental-scale migrations. The main project objectives are then to examine how fluctuations in floral visitation due to various anthropogenic causes affect pathways of pollinator pathogen transmission. In particular, the effects of species introductions, human-mediated migration, and climate change will be examined. Such a synthesis will provide insights and new understanding into the pathways of florally-transmitted pathogens and disease.