Pollinator Network Resilience to Species Loss in Agricultural Landscape Mosaics
DOI::
https://doi.org/10.70102/AEJ.2025.17.4.69کلمات کلیدی:
Pollinator networks, Species loss, Ecological resilience, Agricultural landscape mosaics, Network robustness, Biodiversity conservation, Plant–pollinator interactions.چکیده
The extinction of pollinators is a major challenge to ecosystem stability and agricultural output, especially in heterogeneous landscape mosaics where species interactions are highly interdependent. The research question of the proposed study is how pollination networks respond to species loss in diversified farming environments by examining the dynamics of structural properties and their effects on resilience. Empirical field-based data from 45 sampling sites with mixed-crop and semi-natural habitats to construct bipartite plant-pollinator interaction networks and simulate the sequential removal of species based on abundance and functional significance. Robustness indices (R), connectance (C), nestedness (NODF), and interaction evenness were used to assess network resilience. Findings show that average network robustness (when keystone pollinators were selectively removed) decreased by 38.6%, compared with a 17.2% decrease when removed randomly. The level of connectedness (C = 0.42 ±0.05) in high interconnected networks was more tolerant to disturbance than distributively sparsely connected systems (C = 0.27 ±0.04). Nestedness was positively associated with resilience (r = 0.71, p < 0.01), suggesting that redundant interactions play a protective role against species loss. Also, the landscapes (two or more semi-natural habitats) had 22.4% higher pollinator persistence rates than intensively cultivated landscapes. The results emphasize that ecological resilience depends on both network structure and landscape composition. Improving habitat heterogeneity and preserving key species can play a major role in addressing the cascading impacts of pollinator loss. This work presents quantitative research to support the idea of sustainable land management, which contributes to agricultural pollination and ecosystem stability.