Mass Flowering and Flowering Asynchrony Characterize a Seasonal Herbaceous Community in the Western Ghats

作者：Saket Shrotri, Sukhraj Kaur, Rahul Dhargalkar, Najla Pathura Valappil, Vinita Gowda · 发表于：Biotropica · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1111/btp.70080 · 被引用次数：2 · 研究领域：Plant and animal studies、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Animal Ecology and Behavior Studies

ABSTRACT Flowering synchrony within a community may be facilitated by climatic factors and by ecological interactions that promote shared pollination services. In contrast, flowering asynchrony is promoted when there is inter‐species competition for pollinators. Here, we investigate the flowering phenology of a seasonal, herbaceous community (Kaas plateau) in the Western Ghats, India, to identify the presence of synchrony and mass flowering. We addressed the following questions: (a) Is flowering seasonality correlated with climatic factors? (b) Is there evidence for flowering synchrony or floral colour‐based synchrony within the community? (c) Do plant‐pollinator interactions shift with flowering phenology? In Kaas, we recorded the flowering phenology of 76 herbaceous species and found that climatic factors influenced their flowering phenology. We also identified the community to be composed of a few mass flowering (MF) species (~30%) and several non‐mass flowering (nMF) species (~70%). Using two novel synchrony indices, temporal overlap (SI temp ) and synchrony in abundance (SI abd ), we also identified higher asynchronous flowering within the community than expected. Notably, species sharing the same floral color showed a marked absence of synchrony, thus suggesting that competition and not pollinator‐mediated facilitation drives flowering asynchrony within Kaas. Finally, pollination networks were observed to shift with flowering abundances within the community. Our finding...