Predicting heterospecific pollen transfer from pollinator movement behavior

Pollinator-mediated interactions between plant species can occur in several ways. Plant species that share generalist pollinators are likely to experience heterospecific pollen transfer, and thereby risk consequences that include allelopathic and mechanical interference with conspecific pollen, as well as hybridization. Thus, we need to improve our understanding of the link between pollinator behavior and heterospecific pollen transfer. In this study, we developed a model of pollinator visits to individual plants in a two species patch. Preliminary results suggest that the rarity of a plant species increases its probability of receiving heterospecific pollen, but this relationship may also depend on the forage quality of each species.  We apply our model to plant species with different mating systems, and consider the fitness implications for conspecific pollen interference compared to hybridization.