Gavin Ballantyne
Gavin Ballantyne

Dr Gavin Ballantyne

Lecturer

Biography

As an ecologist I study the interactions between different species and I’m especially fascinated by pollination. My research investigates the outcome of these interactions between animals and flowering plants. Thousands of species of bees and other insects benefit from pollen and nectar produced by flowers and the plants benefit from the pollination service these visitors provide. However, the outcome of these interactions isn’t always easy to predict. The likelihood of successful pollination can depend on the species of visitor and the composition of the surrounding plant community. So a certain species of bee might be an excellent pollinator of one plant species, but a terrible pollinator of another. Similarly, a species of hoverfly may be a great pollinator of a plant species in one habitat, but not very effective in another. Understanding this variation in pollination ability involves studying the outcomes of flower visits by many different species in many different contexts, including urban environments which are becoming increasingly important worldwide.

I’m passionate about the work for two main reasons. Firstly, it gives me the chance to familiarise myself with a wide variety of different plant and insect species in Scotland and around the world. My research touches on such a wide range of topics, from the learning abilities of bees, to the evolution of flowering plants. Secondly, we are totally dependent on pollination ecosystem services that these plants and animals provide for us. Understanding how vulnerable these interactions are to change and how they can adapt to the human modified environments is essential for our own security and wellbeing. Ideally we need to support a wide variety of potential pollinators, from many different bee species, to hoverfly and butterfly species and to do this we need as much information as possible about their ecology and the ecology of the plants that support them.

Research Gate: www.researchgate.net/profile/Gavin_Ballantyne
twitter: @GavBecology

Date


13 results

Flower‐visitor and pollen‐load data provide complementary insight into species and individual network roles

Journal Article
Cirtwill, A. R., Wirta, H., Kaartinen, R., Ballantyne, G., Stone, G. N., Cunnold, H., …Roslin, T. (2024)
Flower‐visitor and pollen‐load data provide complementary insight into species and individual network roles. Oikos, 2024(4), Article e10301. https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.10301
Most animal pollination results from plant–insect interactions, but how we perceive these interactions may differ with the sampling method adopted. The two most common methods...

Stable pollination service in a generalist High Arctic community despite the warming climate

Journal Article
Cirtwill, A., Kaartinen, R., Rasmussen, C., Redr, D., Wirta, H., Olesen, J., …Roslin, T. (in press)
Stable pollination service in a generalist High Arctic community despite the warming climate. Ecological monographs, https://doi.org/10.1002/ecm.1551
Insects provide key pollination services in most terrestrial biomes, but this service depends on a multi-step interaction between insect and plant. An insect needs to visit a ...

Pollinator-flower interactions in gardens during the covid 19 pandemic lockdown of 2020

Journal Article
Ollerton, J., Trunschke, J., Havens, K., Landaverde-González, P., Keller, A., Gilpin, A., …Arnold, S. (2022)
Pollinator-flower interactions in gardens during the covid 19 pandemic lockdown of 2020. Journal of Pollination Ecology, 31(9), 87-96. https://doi.org/10.26786/1920-7603%282022%29695
During the main COVID-19 global pandemic lockdown period of 2020 an impromptu set of pollination ecologists came together via social media and personal contacts to carry out s...

Insect Pollination and Sustainable Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa

Journal Article
Tolera, K., & Ballantyne, G. (2021)
Insect Pollination and Sustainable Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of Pollination Ecology, 27(2), 36-46
We are currently seeing an expansion of pollinator-dependent crops in many parts of the world, but also growing evidence for pollinator population declines and loss of pollina...

Environmental sustainability and biodiversity within the dental practice.

Journal Article
Duane, B., Ramasubbu, D., Harford, S., Steinbach, I., Stancliffe, R., & Ballantyne, G. (2019)
Environmental sustainability and biodiversity within the dental practice. British Dental Journal, 226(9), 701-705. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41415-019-0208-8
This paper forms part of a series of papers, seven in total, which have been requested by colleagues to help them as clinicians understand sustainability as it relates to dent...

Estimating pollinator performance of visitors to the self-incompatible crop-plant Brassica rapa by single visit deposition and pollen germination: a comparison of methods

Journal Article
Patchett, R., Ballantyne, G., & Willmer, P. (2017)
Estimating pollinator performance of visitors to the self-incompatible crop-plant Brassica rapa by single visit deposition and pollen germination: a comparison of methods. Journal of Pollination Ecology, 21(3), 78-85
Estimating the pollen-deposition effectiveness of flower visitors is fundamental to understanding their performance as pollinators. While estimates of visitation rates, pollen...

Pollinator importance networks illustrate the crucial value of bees in a highly speciose plant community

Journal Article
Ballantyne, G., Baldock, K. C. R., Rendell, L., & Willmer, P. (2017)
Pollinator importance networks illustrate the crucial value of bees in a highly speciose plant community. Scientific Reports, 7(1), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08798-x
Accurate predictions of pollination service delivery require a comprehensive understanding of the interactions between plants and flower visitors. To improve measurements of p...

Insights from measuring pollen deposition: quantifying the pre-eminence of bees as flower visitors and effective pollinators

Journal Article
Willmer, P. G., Cunnold, H., & Ballantyne, G. (2017)
Insights from measuring pollen deposition: quantifying the pre-eminence of bees as flower visitors and effective pollinators. Arthropod-Plant Interactions, 11(3), 411-425. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11829-017-9528-2
Using our accumulated datasets from Kenyan savanna, Mediterranean garigue, UK gardens and heathland, involving 76 plants from 30 families, we present detailed data to quantify...

Constructing more informative plant–pollinator networks: visitation and pollen deposition networks in a heathland plant community

Journal Article
Ballantyne, G., Baldock, K. C. R., & Willmer, P. G. (2015)
Constructing more informative plant–pollinator networks: visitation and pollen deposition networks in a heathland plant community. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 282(1814), https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.1130
Interaction networks are widely used as tools to understand plant–pollinator communities, and to examine potential threats to plant diversity and food security if the ecosyste...

Data from: Constructing more informative plant-pollinator networks: visitation and pollen deposition networks in a heathland plant community

Dataset
Ballantyne, G., Baldock, K. C., & Willmer, P. G. (2015)
Data from: Constructing more informative plant-pollinator networks: visitation and pollen deposition networks in a heathland plant community. [Dataset]. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.17pp3
Interaction networks are widely used as tools to understand plant–pollinator communities, and to examine potential threats to plant diversity and food security if the ecosyste...

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