# Impacts of sampling effort on seasonal plant-pollinator interaction turnover over eight years

## TL;DR

This study shows how sampling effort affects the observed changes in plant-pollinator interactions over time in a subalpine meadow.

## Contribution

The study reveals that sampling effort significantly influences the measurement of interaction turnover and its components in ecological networks.

## Key findings

- Interaction and species turnover decrease with higher sampling effort, while rewiring increases.
- Saturation curves indicate that true network values are approached with more sampling.
- Seasonal trends in interaction turnover were consistent across eight years of data.

## Abstract

Plant-pollinator interaction networks are dynamic in time and space. Interaction turnover consists of interaction rewiring (i.e., changes in interactions independent of species turnover) and species turnover (i.e., the gain or loss of species present in the network). To capture network dynamics, it is crucial to address the effect of sampling effort because insufficient data can distort apparent network patterns. We used eight years of plant-pollinator interaction data from a subalpine meadow to examine patterns of temporal (week-to-week) interaction turnover and the role of sampling effort. With increasing sampling effort, values of interaction turnover and species turnover decreased, and rewiring increased. Saturation curves suggest an approach towards true values with higher sampling effort. Across the eight years, substantial variation in weekly and seasonal interaction turnover was observed, with identifiable seasonal trends across all aggregated years. These results demonstrated that the interpretation of interaction turnover and its components is sensitive to sampling effort, stressing the importance of considering its role in network studies.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00442-025-05771-8.