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 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...
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...
Why flower visitation is a poor proxy for pollination: measuring single-visit pollen deposition, with implications for pollination networks and conservation
Journal Article
King, C., Ballantyne, G., & Willmer, P. G. (2013)
Why flower visitation is a poor proxy for pollination: measuring single-visit pollen deposition, with implications for pollination networks and conservation. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 4(9), 811-818. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210x.12074
Summary
The relative importance of specialized and generalized plant-pollinator relationships is contentious, yet analyses usually avoid direct measures of pollinator quality ...
Floral visitors and ant scent marks: noticed but not used?
Journal Article
Ballantyne, G., & Willmer, P. (2012)
Floral visitors and ant scent marks: noticed but not used?. Ecological Entomology, 37(5), 402-409. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2311.2012.01378.x
1. Bee behaviour when visiting flowers is mediated by diverse chemical cues and signals, from the flower itself and from previous visitors to the flower. Flowers recently visi...
Nectar Theft and Floral Ant-Repellence: A Link between Nectar Volume and Ant-Repellent Traits?
Journal Article
Ballantyne, G., & Willmer, P. (2012)
Nectar Theft and Floral Ant-Repellence: A Link between Nectar Volume and Ant-Repellent Traits?. PLOS ONE, 7(8), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0043869
As flower visitors, ants rarely benefit a plant. They are poor pollinators, and can also disrupt pollination by deterring other flower visitors, or by stealing nectar. Some pl...
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...
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...
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...