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P-IE

Student Competition Poster

Category: Student Competition Poster

Undergrad Poster: P-IE, Ecology

How organisms associated with plants interact: A soils to bees survey

Presenting Author(s)

Nada Lamie

Undergraduate Student
University of California, Berkeley, California, United States

Co-Author(s)

AG

Aidee Guzman

PhD Candidate
UC Berkeley
Berkeley, California, United States
IS

Isabela Soria-Gilman

Research Assistant
UC Berkeley
Berkeley, California, United States
MM

Marisol Montes

Research Assistant
UC Berkeley
Berkeley, California, United States
CK

Claire Kremen

Professor
The University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
TB

Timothy Bowles

Principal Investigator
UC Berkeley
Berkeley, California, United States

As pollinator levels decline, we need to look to natural processes that could potentially enhance the quality of floral resources (pollen and nectar) they depend on. In this study we look to arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), an ancient root symbiont that can bolster nutrient uptake, as a potential belowground driver for pollinator visitation plus floral resource quality and quantity. Previous research shows foraging behaviors are influenced by floral traits and nectar viability and that AMF can have strong effects on flower size and number, pollen abundance and nectar sugar concentration. In a combined greenhouse and field setting, we bring these two ideas together in a belowground to aboveground framework to answer: does AMF presence impact pollinator activity? Moreover, we further investigated this relationship by assessing whether functionally distinct AMF groups yield different effects, and whether soil nutrient levels interact with AMF composition and thus pollinator behavior. We hypothesize that AMF inoculated plants will have a higher frequency of bee visits. Our preliminary results suggest that AMF presence, specifically different AMF functional groups, influences the number of bee visits but not foraging time. Furthermore, we observe an interaction between AMF presence and soil nutrient levels on pollinator visitation.