2020-2023
Self-restoration of pollination services in Mediterranean post-fire communities co-considering fire traits and grazing stress
Disturbances play a fundamental role in shaping the dynamics of biological communities as they cause changes, often to the worse, to biodiversity, which in turn affect important ecosystem services. Pollination, one of the most fundamental ecosystem services, is subject to the impact of a wide range of disturbances, including grazing and fire, which in Mediterranean ecosystems coexist in space and time. As the effects of these two disturbances on pollinators have only been occasionally studied and never in combination, the present research intends to fill this gap thereby introducing four major innovations:
1. the combined impact of fire and grazing in space and time taking into account the landscape structure,
2. the use of time series of 13 communities based on the year-to-year succession for the first 9 post-fire years,
3. the pre-fire condition assessed with the same methods and protocols as in post-fire years and
4. for the first time, focusing on the ecosystem stability, co-considering, besides pollinator biodiversity, the characteristics of flowering plant–pollinator networks in the context of their ecological succession.
The research is carried out in southern Chios, combining the above
spatiotemporal approach, i.e. analysis of the landscape structure in all phases
of succession, both inside and outside the burnt areas. Tested methods of
sampling and analysis are used, and results, potentially concerning management
strategies, will be applied to develop advanced deterministic and/or stochastic
metamodels.
The outcomes are expected to make a significant contribution to:
1. generating long overdue prediction models for the response of plant–pollinator systems to the combined impact of grazing and fire, which is especially timely during times of climate change and intense anthropogenic pressures and
2. developing effective management strategies to ensure the quality of pollination services and thereby safeguard food security.
