Data from: Diversity matters: effects of density compensation in pollination service during rainfall shift

1. Extreme weather events are increasing in frequency due to the warming
climate. Such extremities can jeopardise ecosystem services and create
economic imbalances. Tropical developing countries are predicted to suffer
the maximum consequences of such events. 2. We examined the impact of such
an event – extreme rainfall fluctuation - on a critical ecosystem service
– pollination, which can be intricately linked to a country’s economy. We
performed this study in a dominant peri-urban vegetable hub of an
agriculture-dependent developing country. 3. We found that the yield of
all pollinator-dependent crops grown across a large spatial scale
(district) over multiple years (six) drastically declined with the
decrease in rainfall. 4. At the local scale, we found that the dominant
crop (representative horticultural crop) had a significant drop in yield
during drought, likely due to the production of fewer female flowers and a
significant shift in the pollinator community. 5. We found that Trigona
sp. (one of the four pollinators) was the critical pollinator positively
influencing fruit to flower ratio (FFR) (an indicator of pollination
service) in the normal rainfall year. However, despite its sharp decline
during drought, the FFR remained unaffected. We found that during drought,
Apis dorsata was crucial in maintaining FFR and compensated for the
decline of the critical pollinator across 67% farmlands. 6. Our study
demonstrates the role of ecosystem stabilising mechanism rescuing the
crucial ecosystem service during climatic variability over the temporal
scale.