Changes in partner traits drive variation in plant-nectar robber interactions across habitats

Abstract

The frequency and outcome of biotic interactions commonly vary with environmental conditions, even without changes to community composition. Yet the drivers of such environmentally-mediated change in biotic interactions are poorly understood, limiting our ability to predict how environmental change will impact communities. Studying nectar robbery by stingless bees of Odontonema cuspidatum (Acanthaceae) in a coffee agroecosystem, we documented a temporally consistent difference in nectar robbing intensity between anthropogenic and seminatural habitats. Plants growing in coffee fields (anthropogenic habitat) experienced significantly more nectar robbery than plants growing in forest fragments (seminatural habitat). Using a combination of field surveys and manipulative experiments, we found that nectar robbery was higher in coffee fields primarily due to environmental effects on a) neighborhood floral context and b) O. cuspidatum floral traits. This led to both preferential foraging by nectar robbers in coffee fields, and to changes in foraging behavior on O. cuspidatum that increased robbery. Nectar robbery significantly reduced fruit set in O. cuspidatum. These results suggest that the effects of anthropogenic environmental change on species traits may be more important than its effect on species density in determining how interaction frequency and outcome are affected by such environmental change.