Plant-Centered Conservation for High-Altitude Insect Pollinators

Plant–pollinator interaction networks constitute the structural and functional foundation of terrestrial ecosystem integrity, yet conservation frameworks have historically prioritised pollinator biology in isolation from the plant community context that sustains it. High-altitude mountain ecosystems including the Himalayan, Hindu Kush-Karakoram, European Alpine, Afroalpine, and Andean systems represent biodiversity hotspots undergoing disproportionately rapid climate-driven transformation, with pollinator communities acutely sensitive to shifts in floral host phenology, resource availability, and habitat structure. Fewer than five percent of published pollinator conservation studies explicitly address plant-centred drivers of community structure and persistence. This critical gap limits both the mechanistic understanding of pollinator decline and the development of effective, plant-informed conservation interventions. This Research Topic advances plant-centred approaches as a necessary and underexplored paradigm in mountain pollinator conservation science.

This Research Topic aims to consolidate and advance empirical, methodological, and synthetic research that positions floral host networks and plant community ecology as primary drivers of pollinator community structure, resilience, and conservation outcome in mountain ecosystems globally. The collection explicitly welcomes community-level, network-level, and landscape-level investigations, encompassing single-system case studies from geographically distinct mountain regions, comparative analyses across elevational or biogeographic gradients, and broad syntheses integrating multiple data sources or study systems. By foregrounding the plant dimension of plant–pollinator mutualisms, this Topic aims to generate a coherent body of literature that reframes conservation targets beyond species-level pollinator protection toward the floral habitat and host plant assemblages upon which pollinator communities depend. Himalayan and other Asian mountain systems are prioritised as underrepresented study regions of global conservation significance, while Afroalpine, European Alpine, and Andean systems are included as biogeographically distinct comparators. The intended outcome is a high-impact, cross-disciplinary collection of direct utility to conservation practitioners, ecologists, and policymakers operating in mountain landscapes.

We welcome Original Research, Reviews, Methods, Technology and Code, Perspective, and Opinion articles on:

• Plant–pollinator interaction network structure, specialization, and functional redundancy in high-altitude ecosystems
• Floral host specificity, host fidelity, and host plant selection in alpine and subalpine bee communities
• Phenological synchrony and mismatch between flowering plants and pollinator activity under climate warming
• Climate-driven range shifts in floral host assemblages and consequences for pollinator community composition
• Plant reproductive success, seed set, and fitness outcomes under altered pollinator regimes in mountain systems
• Identification and conservation value of alpine floral refugia and semi-natural habitat patches as pollinator support structures
• Landscape-level floral resource mapping and remote sensing methodologies for mountain ecosystems
• Long-term phenological monitoring frameworks and network-analytical tools applied to plant–pollinator data
• Functional and phylogenetic diversity of floral communities in Himalayan, Afroalpine, Alpine, and Andean systems
• IUCN-compatible conservation assessments integrating plant host data for high-altitude pollinator taxa

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: Plant–pollinator interaction networks, floral host specificity, high-altitude pollinator conservation, alpine ecosystem functioning, phenological mismatch; mountain biodiversity

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.