Considerable overlap exists in the plant genera present in New Zealand and Australian alpine areas. There is also significant overlap, at the level of family and even genus, of pollinating insects present. This study uses two published surveys, Primack (1983) for New Zealand and Inouye & Pyke (1988) for Australia, to test whether the same taxa of plants and pollinators are associated in the two countries. Sixteen plant genera, 12 insect families, and seven insect genera were common to both studies. There was no tendency for insects in families common to both Australia and New Zealand to preferentially visit plant genera in common to both countries. However, for the seven insect taxa that did visit at least one matching plant genus in both studies, the fly family, Tachinidae, and the native bee genus, Lasioglossum, showed significantly more matches than expected from the random association.
A test for phylogenetic conservatism in plant‐pollinator relationships in Australian and New Zealand alpine floras
Year: 2010
