The reintroduction of the Chequered Skipper butterfly to England is one of the outstanding conservation success stories of the last ten years. I’ve been proud to play a part – see these old posts here, here and here – and in particular supervising Jamie Wildman’s PhD work. The second paper from his thesis has just been published and in it Jamie documents how you can identify individual butterflies by their markings and use this information to estimate the population size, life-span, and movements of Chequered Skippers. The technique could also be applied to other distinctively marked butterflies.
Here’s the reference with a link to a read-only version of the study:
If you need a PDF, get in touch via my Contact page.
Here’s the abstract:
The chequered skipper butterfly Carterocephalus palaemon was reintroduced to Fineshade Wood, England in 2018 as part of a Butterfly Conservation-led project following several years of planning. From 2019–2022, the population was sampled each May–June by the lead author, timed count volunteers, Butterfly Conservation staff, and casual observers.
A novel photographic mark-recapture (PMR) technique was trialled as an alternative to mark-release-recapture (MRR). In conjunction with timed counts, PMR was used to photoidentify individual C. palaemon through each butterfly’s upperside (ups) wing markings, estimate daily and gross population size, detect movements, and determine lifespan. As capture and recapture can be achieved non-invasively using PMR, habitat disturbance, the potential to influence butterfly behaviour, accelerate wing wear, affect mate selection and predation, and heighten mortality risk through handling are eliminated. We found PMR to be a viable alternative to MRR for a sensitive reintroduction of a low-density species with unique ups markings such as C. palaemon. Using capture histories generated through PMR, from a known founder population size of 42 butterflies in 2018, we estimated the population at Fineshade Wood had increased to 618 butterflies (+ 1371.43%) by 2022.
Movements of up to 2.22 km over a time period of 17 days were also detected. Lastly, we discuss the implications of PMR for population sampling of other Lepidopterans, and the potential to improve cost-efficiency of the technique using machine-based learning tools.
Back in August 2022, Karin and I traveled to Kenya where I was teaching on a Tropical Biology Association field course at the Mpala Research Centre – see my posts from the time here and here.
Students on the course have to complete an extended group project, with supervision by teaching staff. Two of the groups looked at the visitors to flower heads of one of the dominant savannah acacias and the interactions between wild honey bees of the native subspecies and the other insects. There have been rather few studies of this honey bee in the wild and so we wrote up the work as a short research note that has now been published in the African Journal of Ecology.
The photo above shows the authors – ‘Team Etbaica’ – from left to right: Luis Pfeifer, Swithin Kashulwe, me, Caka Karlsson, and Janeth Mngulwi.
Here’s the reference with a link to the publisher’s site – the paper is open access:
The East African lowland honey bee (Apis mellifera scutellata) is reported as an aggressive subspecies of the Western honey bee, but few studies have investigated the impact of its aggressiveness on other insect pollinators. Observations of flower visitors to Vachellia (Acacia) etbaica and interactions between honey bees and other insects were conducted in 2022 in Mpala, Kenya. A total of 873 individual flower visitors were recorded, the most frequent being Hymenoptera, followed by Diptera and Lepidoptera. Honey bees dominated floral resources in the morning and late afternoon. When honey bees encountered other types of insects, they displaced the latter from flowers 100% of the time. This has never been observed in other Western honey bee subspecies, and we recommend further research on these taxa.
During the 2020 lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, I coordinated an international network of pollination ecologists who used standardised methods to collect data in their gardens. I blogged about it at the time – see here and here for instance – and also put up a post when the data paper from that work was published.
Several research groups are now working with that huge data set and interrogating it for answers to a wide range of questions. The first group to actually publish a paper from the data is a largely Chinese set of researchers from the Key Laboratory of Plant Resources, Conservation and Sustainable Utilization, at the South China Botanical Garden in Guangzhou, assisted by Kit Prendergast and myself.
In this paper we’ve considered how robust these plant-pollinator networks are to simulated extinctions of species, and how this is affected by the elevation, latitude, and plant species diversity of the network.
Here’s the full reference with a link to the study:
If you can’t access it and need a PDF, please send me a request via my Contact page.
Here’s the abstract:
Plant-pollinator interactions play a vital role in the maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem function. Geographical variation in environmental factors can influence the diversity of pollinators and thus, affect the structure of pollination networks. Given the current global climate change, understanding the variation of pollination network structure along environmental gradients is vital to predict how global change will affect the ecological interaction processes. Here, we used a global plant-pollinator interaction data collection by the same sampling method at the same period to explore the effects of elevation, latitude, and plant richness on the structure and robustness of pollination networks. We analyzed a total of 87 networks of plant-pollinator interactions on 47 sites from 14 countries. We conducted a piecewise structural equation model to examine the direct and indirect effects of elevation, latitude, and plant richness on the network robustness and analyzed the function of network structure in elucidating the relationship between robustness and these gradients. We found that plant richness had both positive effects on robustness under random and specialist-first scenarios. Elevation, latitude, and plant richness affected network connectance and modularity, and ultimately affected network robustness which were mediated by nestedness under specialist-first and random scenarios, and by connectance under the generalist-first scenario. This study reveals the indirect effects of elevation, latitude, and plant richness on pollination network robustness were mediated by nestedness or connectance depended on the order of species extinctions, implying that communities with different pollination network structures can resist different extinction scenarios.
Researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) are calling for volunteers to contribute to their investigation of the springtime pollen diets of bumblebees in the UK countryside.
Spring is a critical season for colony-establishing bumblebees, but little is known about what types of pollen they collect at this time. In particular, trees, shrubs, and woodland flowers may make significant contributions to bumblebee pollen diets.
Volunteers are needed from across the UK to collect pollen samples from live bumblebees in April and May this year. These will then be analysed by the researchers to determine their taxonomic composition.
Volunteers can collect as many or as few samples as they like – every contribution will help! For an information pack detailing what is involved, and to receive a registration form, please email Guthrie Allen (BIO – Postgraduate Researcher): G.Allen [at] uea.ac.uk.
In this delightful book, [Ollerton] describes the ways that birds and flowers interact. As in his previous book, Pollinators & Pollination: Nature and Society, [he] takes a deeply personal approach to the subject. He combines anecdotes from his research travels around the world, to mountains of Kenya and Tanzania, the Andes of Peru, Brazil, and Nepal, among other places, with his contributions to, and masterful knowledge of, the recent literature…
The review is free to read and download from Journal of Pollination Ecology. I’m so glad that people are enjoying the book – if you’ve bought or borrowed a copy, please do leave a comment and let me know what you think.
A message from Dr Debora Drucker, WorldFAIR Agricultural Biodiversity Case Study Lead:
Registration is open to our contribution to the WorldFAIR webinar series – “Reusing Plant-Pollinator Datasets: a Global Perspective with Guidelines and Recommendations inspired by Pilot Studies from Africa, the Americas and Europe”.
We will present results from Deliverables 10.2 & 10.3, with focus on our pilot studies:
Drucker, D., Salim, J. A., Poelen, J., Soares, F. M., Gonzalez-Vaquero, R. A., Ollerton, J., Devoto, M., Rünzel, M., Robinson, D., Kasina, M., Taliga, C., Parr, C., Cox-Foster, D., Hill, E., Maues, M. M., Saraiva, A. M., Agostini, K., Carvalheiro, L. G., Bergamo, P., Varassin, I.; Alves, D. A., Marques, B., Tinoco, F. C., Rech, A. R., Cardona-Duque, J., Idárraga, M., Agudelo-Zapata, M. C., Marentes Herrera, E. Trekels, M. (2024). WorldFAIR (D10.2) Agricultural Biodiversity Standards, Best Practices and Guidelines Recommendations (Version 1). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10666593
Drucker, D. P., Salim, J. A., Poelen, J., Soares, F. M., Gonzalez-Vaquero, R. A., Devoto, M., Ollerton, J., Kasina, M., Carvalheiro, L. G., Bergamo, P. J., Alves, D. A., Varassin, I., Tinoco, F. C., Rünzel, M., Robinson, D., Cardona-Duque, J., Idárraga, M., Agudelo-Zapata, M. C., Marentes Herrera, E., Taliga, C., Parr, C.S., Cox-Foster, D., Hill, E., Maués, M.M. Agostini, K. Rech, A.R., Saraiva, A. (2024). WorldFAIR (D10.3) Agricultural biodiversity FAIR data assessment rubrics (Version 1). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10719265
We reserved a good amount of time for Q&A – I hope to see you there and have a nice discussion!
In my new book Birds & Flowers: An Intimate 50 Million Year Relationship I spend a bit of time discussing the idea of the bird pollination syndrome that we refer to as ‘ornithophily’, its limitations, and the fact that it has two distinct meanings that are often conflated. One of the problems with ornithophily, and indeed all of the syndromes, is that historically it’s sometimes blinkered scientists to the extent that they only look at the flower visitors that are “right” for the syndrome, ignoring the rest or dismissing them as “secondary pollinators”, a term I dislike.
Why do I dislike that term? Because it fails to capture the complexity of flower-pollinator interactions and relegates an important component of plant reproduction to a subsidiary role. I could go on about this at some length, but if you’re interested in discovering more, look at pages 62-65 of Birds & Flowers. There I contrast the classical Most Effective Pollinator Principle with the equally valid (but much less well studied) Least Effective Pollinator Principle, with a segue into one of my favourite tracks from Led Zeppelin’s second album: What is and What Should Never Be.
But back to the real subject of this post – a flower that corresponds to the classical bird pollination syndrome BUT is also pollinated by bees and (very surprisingly) wind! It’s such an interesting paper by Brazilian ecologists Amanda Pacheco, Pedro Bergamo & Leandro Freitas – here’s the reference and a link to the study:
For over 100 years the classical pollination syndromes have acted as a framework for understanding the ecology and evolution of plant-pollinator interactions. But we’ve long known that while they can be a useful shorthand, they do not fully reflect the complexity of how pollination systems evolve. That shouldn’t surprise us because, as I point out in my two recent books, we have data (of any quality) on no more than 10% of the 350,000 or so species of flowering plants!
In addition, those plants for which we do have good data are NOT a random subset of the flowering plants: they have been specifically chosen by researchers because they look to be good systems with which to address particular ecological or evolutionary questions.
Which is fine, but we MUST recognise that this imposes significant restrictions on our understanding of the biodiversity of plant-pollinator interactions. The authors of this paper expressed it very well when they wrote that assumptions about:
“predictability may cause researchers to take for granted that only birds pollinate ornithophilous flowers, hindering research on the contribution of other vectors.”
To which I’d add: it also hinders our understanding of how these interactions evolve over long time scales and across multiple populations.
An obvious question is: how frequent are these sorts of complex pollination systems, involving different pollen vectors of an apparently specialised flower? The answer is that we simply don’t know, because most researchers would have not gone into this level of detail. So a huge congratulations to the authors for a great study – I hope it stimulates others to look beyond the ‘expected’ pollinators of flowers.
Photos: Nathália Susin Streher from the original paper.
The final deliverable from the WorldFAIR Project with which I’m involved has recently been published and can be freely downloaded from Zenodo by following the link below. The report is called “Agricultural biodiversity FAIR data assessment rubrics” and in it we present the results from a series of six pilot studies that adopted the FAIR* standards and our recommendations from the previous report.
This document complements the previous one by giving examples and setting out guidelines that allow researchers and practitioners to ensure FAIRness in their plant-pollinator interaction data.
Here’s the full reference:
Drucker, D. P., Salim, J. A., Poelen, J., Soares, F. M., Gonzalez-Vaquero, R. A., Devoto, M., Ollerton, J., Kasina, M., Carvalheiro, L. G., Bergamo, P. J., Alves, D. A., Varassin, I., Tinoco, F. C., Rünzel, M., Robinson, D., Cardona-Duque, J., Idárraga, M., Agudelo-Zapata, M. C., Marentes Herrera, E., Taliga, C., Parr, C.S., Cox-Foster, D., Hill, E., Maués, M.M. Agostini, K. Rech, A.R., Saraiva, A. (2024). WorldFAIR (D10.3) Agricultural biodiversity FAIR data assessment rubrics (Version 1). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10719265
Although this is the last formal deliverable from our WorldFAIR work package, it’s not the final output that we have planned. I’ll report back on the journal paper(s) that we are writing as and when they are published.
*Findable, Accessible, Interoperable & Reusable (or sometimes Reproducible)
One of the most productive research collaborations in which I’ve had the pleasure to be involved has been with André Rodrigo Rech in Brazil. It started when he was a postgrad working on his PhD, and has now continued as André has developed into fully-fledged academic with his own research group. That productivity has been fueled by a lot of coffee, of course, as you’ll know if you’ve read my book Pollinators & Pollination: Nature and Society!
Here’s the reference – if you want a PDF of the paper, please send me a message via my Contact page:
Pereira Machado, A.C., Baronio, G., Soares Novaes, C., Ollerton, J., Wolowski, M., Natalina Silva Lopes, D. & Rech, A. (2024) Optimizing coffee production: Increased floral visitation and bean quality at plantation edges with wild pollinators and natural vegetation. Journal of Applied Ecology (in press)
Here’s the abstract:
Animal pollination is important for more than 75% of agricultural crops, including coffee, whose productivity can increase with adequate pollination. Bees, including many solitary species, are diverse pollinators, with around 85% of them considered more effective than honeybees in pollen transfer. We assessed the coffee plantation and its surrounding vegetation for solitary bee nesting throughout the coffee flowering season and measured their impact on coffee productivity.
We installed collection stations with trap nests inside a coffee plantation, on the border and inside the native vegetation in a farm in Diamantina, MG, Brazil. We used 10 weekly monitored replicates at least 1 km apart. We evaluated fruiting by autogamy in relation to natural pollination and used the increase in fruit set from pollinators to calculate the farmer’s monetary gain. We recorded bee visits to the exposed flowers during coffee flowering considering both on the edge and inside the coffee plantation. Ripe fruits were dried, counted and weighed.
We discovered 132 solitary bee nests outside the plantation, with 54% containing coffee pollen grains, indicating coffee as an essential resource for bees even outside the crop area. More bee visits occurred at the coffee plantation’s edge, resulting in increased fruit production, denser fruits, and rounder fruits in that area. Bagged flowers produced consistent seeds in all locations. The farmer could earn an extra US$1736.37 per hectare if the entire area received the same level of pollination contribution from bees as observed at the coffee border.
Synthesis and applications. Our study emphasises the key role of pollinators in coffee production and their impact on fruit and seed characteristics. Bee visits were more frequent on border areas, emphasising their reliance on natural nesting sites. Bee-mediated pollination positively affected fruit traits and self-pollinated fruits in plantation borders had reduced mass. Solitary bee nesting was primarily observed in native vegetation, underlining its importance for bee populations. Pollen composition in nests varied with proximity to coffee plantations, indicating landscape vegetation influences pollinator foraging. These findings support optimising coffee plantation design by preserving native vegetation to increase coffee yields and conserve biodiversity.
Yesterday I received an email containing the following press release. I thought it might interest readers of the blog so I am copying it in full with no edits. I had a quick look over the report and it’s amazingly detailed and comprehensive. It’s a shame that the report only covers insects, but that probably reflects my current bias given that my next book, due out in February, is about pollinating birds! Press release follows:
Governor Polis and the Department of Natural Resources Release Pollinator Report
BROOMFIELD – Today, Governor Polis in partnership with The Colorado Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Colorado State University Extension, Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, and University of Colorado Museum of Natural History released the Colorado Native Pollinating Insects Health Study which is the most robust and detailed account of pollinator health ever undertaken in Colorado history. As directed by SB22-199, Native Pollinating Insects Protection Study, sponsored by Senators Sonya Jaquez Lewis and Kevin Priola, and Representatives Cathy Kipp and Meg Froelich, signed by Governor Polis on May 27, 2022, the study assesses the health of Colorado’s native pollinators, evaluates state policies for safeguarding pollinators, and makes recommendations on how to preserve and protect pollinators in Colorado.
“Pollinators play a critical role in Colorado life. From Crested Butte’s beautiful spring meadows to Palisade Peaches and Rocky Ford melons, Colorado’s pollinators sustain our flora and enable many foundational industries in every corner of the state. As our climate changes, we must safeguard the pollinators that generate and regenerate the Colorful Colorado we love,” said Governor Polis
Colorado is home to various native insects and bats whose pollinating services are at the heart of healthy environments and economies. Pollinators are critical to Colorado’s economy and our agricultural production and food systems, and they are essential for flowering plants that support the state’s wildlife ecosystem and add color to Colorado’s beautiful landscapes.
“Colorado is fortunate to have a tremendous diversity of plants and animals, but pollinating insects are perhaps the least studied but most beneficial for our ecosystems, economy and quality of life,” said Dan Gibbs, Executive Director, Colorado Department of Natural Resources. “I greatly appreciate the time and effort of the study authors who truly did a deep dive into the current state of pollinating insects and state policies and structures. I look forward to working with Colorado legislators and stakeholders in pursuing the best policies to ensure pollinating insect protection and long-term health.”
Colorado is home to over 1,000 species of bees—nearly 30% of North America’s and approximately 5% of the world’s bee species—and nearly 300 species of butterflies, representing over 40% of the diversity of butterflies in North America north of Mexico, some of which are already listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. This report underscores the importance of the Polis administration’s goals to tackle Colorado’s greenhouse gas emissions, prepare industries for the impending effects of climate change, and create more sustainable living in Colorado for pollinator populations.
“Our ecosystems rely on pollinators, which is why I’ve championed measures that limit toxic chemicals from harming pollinators and put forth a statewide assessment to better understand the problems our pollinators face and identify practices to better sustain them,” said Senator Sonya Jaquez Lewis, D-Longmont. “Today’s report shows that there’s plenty to do moving forward, and I am looking forward to continuing our work to protect pollinators and the ecosystems that are dependent on them.”
“I’m excited that we have this report to help us understand the extent of pollinator decline in Colorado. While Colorado ranks fifth nationally for the rate of honey-bee die-offs, we haven’t known as much about native pollinating insects. This threatens our food production, biodiversity and health of our ecosystems,” said Rep. Cathy Kipp, D-Fort Collins. “We created the Native Pollinating Insects Protection Study in 2022 to identify ways to better protect and support the native Colorado pollinators, like different bee species, butterflies, and moths, that are also essential to maintaining a healthy environment. These findings will help direct future legislation to create a safer environment for our pollinators, protect our food supply and support biodiversity.”
Promoting policies that benefit native pollinating insects represents an opportunity to foster healthy and sustainable pollinator populations, especially in agricultural and urban habitats. This includes enhancing pollinator-friendly native plantings along I-76 following its designation as a Colorado Pollinator Highway by the Colorado Department of Transportation and other existing state plans such as the state’s Natural Areas Program, and Wildlife Action Plan among others.
“Working on the Pollinator Health Study has been an amazing opportunity to collaborate with so many locally, nationally, and internationally recognized experts in the field of pollinator conservation. In addition to the immense amount of information within the report, this study highlights the importance of collaboration between scientists and land management agencies to bring together the many facets needed for conserving native pollinating insects,” said Deryn Davidson, Sustainable Landscape State Specialist, Colorado State University Extension. “Having the existing research on Colorado pollinators paired with recommended land management practices in one, comprehensive document is an incredible tool for policy makers, land managers, and really anyone interested in actionable steps for pollinator conservation.”
Areas of immediate action and priorities highlighted by the Pollinator Report include:
Priority 2: Protect, restore, and connect pollinator habitats.
Priority 3: Mitigate environmental changes that negatively impact pollinators and their habitats.
Priority 4: Reduce the risks from pesticides to pollinating insects.
Priority 5: Monitor and support native and managed pollinator health.
Governor Polis announced his annual budget proposal on November 1, focusing on ensuring Colorado is more affordable, sustainable, and liveable. The Governor included $100,000 to support education and incentives to encourage the use of pesticide alternatives in agricultural production and residential or commercial landscaping. On May 17, 2023, Governor Polis signed Neonic Pesticides as Limited-Use Pesticides, sponsored by Senators Kevin Priola and Sonya Jaquez Lewis and Representatives Kyle Brown and Cathy Kipp, which protects pollinators from harmful toxins.
Prof. Jeff Ollerton - ecological scientist and author 