Effect of pollination strategy, phylogeny and distribution on pollination niches of Euro-Mediterranean orchids

1. Pollination niches are important components of ecological niches and have played a major role in the diversification of Angiosperms. In this study, we focused on Euro-Mediterranean orchids, which use diverse pollination strategies and interact with various functional groups of insects. In these orchids, we investigated the determinants of pollination niche breadth and overlap by analysing the orchid-pollinator network and the factors that may have shaped it.
2. We constructed a database reporting 1278 interactions between 243 orchid and 773 pollinator species based on a thorough literature review. We then focused on 153 orchid species for which phylogenetic data were available. We used Bayesian phylogenetic mixed models to study the relationship between specialisation (as estimated by the degree and degree in the projected network), pollination strategy and breadths of orchids’ spatial and temporal distributions, while correcting for the effect of phylogenetic relationships among or...