Both local habitat quality and diversified agricultural landscapes support the restoration of metacommunity cohesion in calcareous grasslands

Restoring semi-natural habitats in agricultural landscapes has become a target of many international policies. However, restoration efforts should go beyond local, species-centered approaches and also target the restoration of ecological interactions at broader scales. At landscape and regional scales, the restoration of plant-pollinator interactions implies enhancing both the spatial redundancy (repetition across space) and spatial complementarity (variation across space) of interactions. Here, we used a meta-network approach to study restoration of plant-pollinator interactions in semi-natural grasslands embedded in agricultural landscapes. Over two years, we recorded plant-wild bee interactions across 96 calcareous grasslands along restoration-abandonment gradients in three countries. Local pollinator habitat quality (floral cover and richness) was found to be fundamental in restoring the diversity of interactions and supporting interaction complementarity. Moreover, greater landscape cover of agri environment schemes (biodiversity friendly farming practices) supported more redundant interactions across grasslands and buffered grassland’s detachment from the meta-network, promoting links between regional communities. Supplementary Material File (velado-alonso_etal_metanetworks_v.7.docx) - Download - 2.03 MB Information & Authors Information Version history Copyright This work is licensed under a Non Exclusive No Reuse License.

Authors Metrics & Citations Metrics Article Usage 621views 206downloads Citations Download citation Elena Velado-Alonso, Ira Hannappel, Felipe Librán-Embid, et al. Both local habitat quality and diversified agricultural landscapes support the restoration of metacommunity cohesion in calcareous grasslands. Authorea. 08 October 2025. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22541/au.175992176.69108567/v1 DOI: https://doi.org/10.22541/au.175992176.69108567/v1 If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download. For more information or tips please see 'Downloading to a citation manager' in the Help menu.