What ecological processes might your hypothesis touch on?
- Plant-Pollinator Interactions: This hypothesis directly addresses the relationship between plants (aster species) and their pollinators (insects). It suggests that the availability of moisture and sunlight could affect the frequency of insect visits for pollination.
- Abiotic Factors and Ecosystem Dynamics: The availability of moisture and sunlight are abiotic (non-living) factors in the ecosystem. They can influence the distribution and behavior of both plants and insects, which are essential components of the ecosystem. Understanding how these factors affect pollination can shed light on broader ecosystem dynamics.
- Resource Availability: Moisture and sunlight are crucial resources for plants. If these resources affect the pollination frequency of aster plants, it highlights the role of resource availability in shaping plant-pollinator interactions.
- Habitat Suitability: This hypothesis implies that different levels of moisture and sunlight can create different habitats or microenvironments within the ecosystem. These variations can influence which plant species thrive and which pollinators are attracted to these areas.
- Competition and Coexistence: The presence of different aster species and their interactions with various insect pollinators in response to substrate moisture and sunlight levels may illustrate competitive dynamics and mechanisms of coexistence within the ecosystem.
- Ecosystem Services: Pollination is an ecosystem service provided by insects. This hypothesis has implications for the provision of this service and its impacts on plant reproduction and ecosystem health.
- Climate Change and Environmental Impacts: Changes in moisture and sunlight availability can be linked to climate change and environmental disturbances. Investigating how these changes affect pollination can have implications for assessing the impacts of environmental shifts on ecosystems.
- Conservation: Understanding the factors affecting insect pollination of aster plant species can have implications for the conservation of these species and the ecosystems in which they exist. It may inform conservation strategies to protect pollinators and their habitats.
Please list three keywords that you could use to describe your research project.
Insect declines, pollination, sunlight exposure, substrate moisture gradient