Plant and animal studies

An ecological synthesis about the effects of floral plantings on crop pollination by bees

This study synthesizes existing knowledge on how floral plantings affect crop pollination by bees, identifying key factors influencing their effectiveness.

Abiotic pollen loss: The neglected pollen fate

The paper quantifies abiotic pollen loss in four plant species and finds it accounts for a large proportion of total pollen loss, sometimes exceeding pollinator-mediated removal.

Global Patterns and Drivers of Bee Diversity and Endemism on Islands

This study presents the first global checklist of island bees, revealing high diversity and endemism, with patterns influenced by island size, isolation, and biome.

Investigating the landscape of plant-pollinator interactions in a hybrid zone

The paper investigates how floral volatile organic compounds and pollinator interactions influence hybridization rates in the Heuchera genus, finding that shared attractants and pollinators correlate with higher hybridization.

Body size and fruit handling ability explain frugivory patterns among Asian mammals

This study examines how body size and fruit handling ability influence frugivory patterns among Asian mammals, finding that these traits explain differences in fruit size and type consumed.

Take it or leaf it: bees learn leaf shape as a cue when flower color is easily learned

This study shows that bees can learn leaf shape as a cue to identify rewarding flowers, but only when flower color cues are difficult to distinguish.

Male-biased sexual selection persists across contrasting habitats in a dioecious plant

The paper examines sex-specific sexual selection on floral traits in Silene dioica across different habitats, finding stronger male-biased selection in anthropogenic environments.

Citizen Science Reveals Lepidopteran-Visitor Flower Network in Metro Manila, Philippines: A Preliminary Study

This study uses citizen science data to construct a Lepidopteran-visitor flower network in Metro Manila, revealing key species interactions and the role of urban plants in supporting endemic butterflies.

Restoration legacy, landscape context and elevation shape frugivory in a tropical landscape

This study evaluates frugivory in tropical restoration areas, finding that landscape context and elevation are more influential than restoration strategy.

Changing pollination rates affect plant life history strategies

This study examines how altered pollination rates affect life history strategies in four perennial plant species, finding consistent shifts in generation time, longevity, and recovery time.

Metabolism and chemical diversity evolve in response to pollinator availability

This study shows that limited pollinator access reduces chemical diversity and alters metabolism in Brassica rapa, with implications for plant-pollinator networks.

Coevolution of phenological traits shapes plant-pollinator coexistence

The paper develops a theoretical model to show how phenological trait coevolution promotes stable, diverse plant-pollinator communities by fostering facilitation over competition, contrasting with morphological coevolution.

The role of secondary pollinators in the evolution of complex colour signals in a bimodal pollination system

This study examines how bird and bee pollinators influence selection on flower color in Cyrtanthus obliquus, showing that secondary pollinators contribute to shaping complex color signals.

Apidae BeeHavioural response to shape-neutral visual stimuli in natural setup

This study examines how bees respond to artificial flowers with simplified visual cues, finding a preference for yellow backgrounds and UV patterns, influenced by environmental factors.

Frugivore species richness influences dietary specialisation and network properties in Asian wet tropical forests

This study examines how frugivore species richness affects dietary specialisation and plant-frugivore network properties in tropical forests.

Nectar yeast scent additions fail to impact overall bouquet composition and bumble bee visitation in a montane herb

This study tests if nectar yeast additions affect floral scent and bumble bee foraging behavior, finding no significant impact on either.

Does the mid-domain effect shape interaction networks along environmental gradients?

This study evaluates how the mid-domain effect influences interaction network structure along environmental gradients using simulations and empirical data.

Phenotypic evolutionary response to temporally limited pollinator access in Brassica rapa

This study shows Brassica rapa can adapt phenotypically to limited pollinator access but experiences reduced fitness.

Colour preference and constancy in the giant Asian honey bee Apis dorsata

This study quantifies colour preferences and constancy in Apis dorsata, showing blue preference influenced by reward concentration and capable of being overridden by learned associations.

Fine-Scale Models of Bee Species Diversity and Habitat in New York State

The paper predicts bee species distribution and diversity in New York State using ecological and environmental data to inform conservation planning.

Differential effectiveness of bee and beetle pollinators creates flower colour polymorphism

The paper examines how bee and beetle pollinators affect flower color polymorphism in Anemone pavonina, finding beetles are more effective pollinators than bees.

Elevational patterns in plant mating systems and pollen limitation in Afrotropical montane grasslands

The paper examines how elevation affects plant mating systems and pollen limitation in Afrotropical montane grasslands through experimental studies on seven plant species.

Understanding and addressing under-sampling in plant-pollinator networks using stacked models for missing link prediction

This paper introduces a stacked model to predict missing links in under-sampled plant-pollinator networks using species traits and network topology, showing it can reconstruct networks and identify important features.

A machine learning application to camera-traps: robust species interactions datasets for analysis of mutualistic networks

This paper develops a machine learning approach using camera traps and computer vision to create robust ecological interaction datasets for analyzing mutualistic networks, finding that CV methods can miss up to 10% of pairwise interactions but remain valuable for community-level studies.

Flower clades and fruit clades: trade-offs in color diversification across angiosperms

The paper examines color diversification in flowers and fruits across plant clades, finding a negative correlation between flower and fruit color lability.

Supplementing floral resources does not mitigate the negative effects of urbanisation on cavity-nesting bees and wasps.

This study found that adding floral resources to urban greenspaces did not help cavity-nesting bees and wasps despite urbanisation, as their abundance decreased significantly with urbanisation.

Phenologically Explicit Robustness Metric Reveals Increased Vulnerabilities in Temporal Plant-Pollinator Networks

The paper introduces a temporal robustness metric for ecological networks that accounts for species phenology, revealing that long-lived pollinators are more vulnerable to plant loss than previously thought.

Diversification mitigates pesticide but not microplastic effects on bees without compromising rapeseed yield in China

This study shows that floral diversification reduces neonicotinoid effects on bees but not microplastics, without affecting rapeseed yield in China.

Two hundred years of changes in orchid pollination revealed using herbarium specimens

This study uses herbarium specimens to analyze long-term changes in orchid pollination success across three genera over two centuries, revealing declines in some species and increases in others based on pollination strategies and pollinator availability.

Does generalism drive pollinators' abundance, persistence and regional distribution? Insights from an ecological model

The paper uses an ecological model to show that generalist pollinators are abundant and widely distributed, while specialists are crucial for biodiversity, highlighting the role of ecological connectivity.