Pollinator activity and floral variation of Sable Island, Nova Scotia

Abstract

Pollinators provide an important service to ecosystems worldwide. This includes Sable Island, located in the North Atlantic Ocean ~160 km offshore Nova Scotia. Two plant communities on Sable Island, heath and marram grassland, were compared to determine pollinator foraging activity within each community. For sampling, large 100 × 200 m sites were set up with several smaller 5 × 5 m sampling plots within. Pollinator visits to flowers in a 30-minute time period were recorded, along with floral resources, so a comparison between communities could be made in both July and August. In marram, 39 and 19 unique pollinator taxa visited flowers in July and August, respectively, and in heath, 22 and 29 unique pollinator taxa visited flowers in July and August, respectively, with seven pollinator taxa found in both plant communities. Statistical analysis showed no significant differences in average number of pollinator visits and pollinator diversity between the two communities in July, though in August heath had significantly more pollinator visits and diversity. Many pollinators found during the study included non-bee pollinators, making up 46% of visits in the heath and 79% of visits in the marram. Based on these results, I concluded that the non-bee pollinators are more important to Sable Island than once thought, and both plant communities contain diverse assemblages of pollinators.