Insect-Flower Interaction Network Structure Is Resilient to a Temporary Pulse of Floral Resources from Invasive <i>Rhododendron ponticum</i>

<div><p>Invasive alien plants can compete with native plants for resources, and may ultimately decrease native plant diversity and/or abundance in invaded sites. This could have consequences for native mutualistic interactions, such as pollination. Although invasive plants often become highly connected in plant-pollinator interaction networks, in temperate climates they usually only flower for part of the season. Unless sufficient alternative plants flower outside this period, whole-season floral resources may be reduced by invasion. We hypothesized that the cessation of flowering of a dominant invasive plant would lead to dramatic, seasonal compositional changes in plant-pollinator communities, and subsequent changes in network structure. We investigated variation in floral resources, flower-visiting insect communities, and interaction networks during and after the flowering of invasive <i>Rhododendron ponticum</i> in four invaded Irish woodland sites. Floral resources decreased significantly after <i>R</i>. <i>ponticum</i> flowering, but the magnitude of the decrease varied among sites. Neither insect abundance nor richness varied between the two periods (during and after <i>R</i>. <i>ponticum</i> flowering), yet insect community composition was distinct, mostly due to a significant reduction in <i>Bombus</i> abundance after flowering. During flowering <i>R</i>. <i>ponticum</i> was frequently visited by <i>Bombus</i>; after flowering, these highly mobile pollinators presumably left to find alternative floral resources. Despite compositional changes, however, network structural properties remained stable after <i>R</i>. <i>ponticum</i> flowering ceased: generality increased, but quantitative connectance, interaction evenness, vulnerability, H’₂ and network size did not change. This is likely because after <i>R</i>. <i>ponticum</i> flowering, two to three alternative plant species became prominent in networks and insects increased their diet breadth, as indicated by the increase in network-level generality. We conclude that network structure is robust to seasonal changes in floral abundance at sites invaded by alien, mass-flowering plant species, as long as alternative floral resources remain throughout the season to support the flower-visiting community.</p>