Assessment of interactions between oil flowers and floral visitors in world biomes

Abstract

Abstract Specialized glands that produce and store floral oil are found in 11 families of flowering plants, with greater representation in Malpighiaceae. Solitary bees use this resource to feed larvae and for cell lining. Oil interactions have been reported mainly at the population level and in some community studies that have commonly ignored not only the fewer representative families of oil-offering flowers, but also the floral visitors that do not collect floral oil. We have compiled and examined the interactions between oil-offering flowers and floral visitors in world biomes, to describe the structural patterns of the oil interaction meta-network and evaluate the species' functional roles. We reviewed 169 studies, which mainly used a phytocentric approach, reporting 1460 interactions between 214 species of oil-offering flowers and 377 species of floral visitors. Malpighiaceae and bees (mainly oil-collecting bees) were the most frequently investigated. The meta-network of oil interactions showed a modular structure, mainly influenced by botanical families, and core–periphery organization. The most important functional roles were associated with Malpighiaceae and oil-collecting bees, possibly due to their representativeness and geographic distribution.