Plants and pollinators depend on each other for reproduction and food, and together help maintain biodiversity and food security. From evolutionary studies, we know that flowers and pollinators can reciprocally adapt to each other, but we know much less about how changes in climatic conditions (abiotic contexts) and interactions with other plants and pollinators (biotic contexts) modulate the effect of these adaptations. MountBuzz explores how interactions between the important tropical plant family Melastomataceae and its pollinators (mostly bees) change across elevational gradients in the tropics. This project, using the same scientific approach across all gradients, will document unknown plant-pollinator interactions and deliver knowledge on generalities in interaction patterns across the globe.

Link to this project: https://mountbuzz.univie.ac.at/