One fly to rule them all—muscid flies are the key pollinators in the Arctic

Global change is causing drastic changes in the pollinator communities of the Arctic. While arctic flowers are visited by a wide range of insects, flies in family Muscidae have been proposed as a pollinator group of particular importance. To understand the functional outcome of current changes in pollinator community composition, we examined the role of muscids in the pollination of a key plant species, the mountain avens (Dryas). We monitored the seed set of Dryas across 15 sites at Zackenberg, northeast Greenland, and used sticky flower mimics and DNA barcoding to describe the flower-visiting community at each site. To evaluate the consequences of shifts in pollinator phenology under climate change, we compared the flower visitors between the early and the late season. Our approach revealed a diverse community of insects visiting Dryas, including two-thirds of all insect species known from the area. Even against this diverse background, the abundance of muscid flies emerged as a key p...全球变化正导致北极传粉者群落发生剧烈变化。尽管北极花卉会受到多种昆虫的造访，已有研究指出蝇科（Muscidae）昆虫是一类尤为关键的传粉类群。为明晰当前传粉者群落组成变化所带来的功能效应，我们探究了蝇科昆虫在关键植物物种——山地仙女木（Dryas）的传粉过程中所扮演的角色。我们对格陵兰东北部扎科贝肯（Zackenberg）地区15个样地的山地仙女木结实量进行了监测，并利用粘质花模拟物与DNA条形码（DNA barcoding）技术，对每个样地的访花昆虫群落进行了表征。为评估气候变化背景下传粉者物候转变所产生的后果，我们对比了早季与晚季的访花昆虫类群。本研究方法揭示了造访山地仙女木的昆虫群落具有丰富的物种多样性，涵盖该区域已知昆虫物种总数的三分之二。即便在如此多样的群落背景下，蝇科昆虫的种群丰度仍被证实为关键的……