Fitness consequences of phenological (a)synchrony for plants and pollinators in a sexually deceptive pollination system:

Two fundamental properties of life are that organisms are diverse and that organisms interact with each other. Biodiversity dynamics and biotic interactions are tightly connected since interactions promote, maintain or reduce diversity within and between species through both ecological and evolutionary processes. In particular, biodiversity dynamics depend on properties of biotic interactions, notably on their type (antagonistic, mutualistic or competitive), intensity, and degree of specialization. Consequently, the effect of biotic interactions on biodiversity has long been a focus of both ecology and evolutionary biology. However, there is still a substantial gap between theoretical and empirical research on this subject. FLINT aims to narrow the gap between theoretical and empirical research on the effect of biotic interactions on biodiversity dynamics. Specifically, we aim to (1) enhance the real-world applicability of theory, (2) quantify fitness consequences of biotic interactions in study systems for which interaction mechanisms are well understood, and (3) achieve theory-based synthesis on the effects of biotic interactions on biodiversity dynamics. To reach these goals, FLINT uses biotic interaction landscapes (i.e. a map of the fitness of each interaction partner as a function of traits of all partners) as a joint conceptual framework for all its four component projects.