Abstract
In the project proposed here, I will study host plant-pollinator-parasitoid interactions under different climate and habitat change scenarios. I will focus on pollinating insects with well known ecology i.e. Large Blue butterflies (Maculinea spp.), specialized solitary bees and their host plants and parasitoids. The research will be based on; a) meta-analyses of long-term distribution and abundance data obtained from two regions in Germany and two regions in southern Sweden, b) supplementary fieldwork on some of the key aspects of the reproduction, survival and distribution of the study species, c) development of habitat and climate models based on the large long-term datasets and climate data, d) flower visitation frequency and seed production across major host plant taxa. With this study I aim to: 1) explore relationships between interactions in selected hostplant-pollinator-parasitoid systems. 2) develop, validate and extrapolate habitat and climate models. 3) investigate ecosystem functioning and generality in the study systems. Using pollinating insects in an ecological and evolutionary framework on interactions between hostplants-insects-parasitoids in different habitat and climate scenarios will provide valuable information about ecosystem functioning. Our general knowledge of how such systems are influenced by accelerating changes needs to be improved.
Sweden