Show simple item record

Files in this item

Thumbnail

Item metadata

dc.contributor.advisorWillmer, Pat
dc.contributor.authorCunnold, Helen Elizabeth
dc.coverage.spatialxiii, 289 p.en_US
dc.date.accessioned2018-10-01T13:56:55Z
dc.date.available2018-10-01T13:56:55Z
dc.date.issued2018-06-27
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10023/16121
dc.description.abstractFor over twenty years, flower-visitation networks have been used to assess the effects of pollinator decline, linked to habitat loss, climate change and invasive species, on entire communities. However, most rely on flower visit frequency as a proxy for pollination; very few sample pollen from flower visitor’s bodies or from stigmas and so do not include a quantitative measure of pollination success. Here, I add pollinator effectiveness (as single visit pollen deposition) into a traditional flower visitation network, creating a pollinator importance network that better evaluates the flower visitor community from the plant’s perspective. Given recent interest in pollination in urban areas, I use an urban garden habitat, and compare visitation, pollen transport and pollinator importance networks, giving several novel conclusions. Firstly, although there are similarities in the structure of my networks, interactions were most specialised in the pollinator importance network, with pollen transport proving to be a better proxy for pollinator importance than visitation alone. Secondly, the specialisation of individual plants and the role of individual flower visitors varied between the networks, suggesting that community-level patterns in simple visitation networks can mask important individual differences. Thirdly, the correlation between flower visit frequency and pollinator importance largely depends on bees, and may not hold in plant-pollinator communities that are not bee-dominated. Fourthly, heterospecific pollen deposition was relatively low, despite the unusually diverse plant community of a garden. Finally, bees (particularly Bombus and non-eusocial halictids) carried the largest pollen loads and were the most effective at depositing pollen on to the stigma during a single visit in this garden habitat. The implications of this thesis highlight the strengths and limitations of each network for future studies, and raise important questions for the future of urban pollination studies.en_US
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of St Andrews
dc.subject.lccQK926.C8
dc.subject.lcshPollination by insectsen
dc.subject.lcshPollination by beesen
dc.subject.lcshInsect-plant relationshipsen
dc.titleDistinguishing pollination from visitation : the value of a pollinator effectiveness and pollinator importance networken_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.contributor.sponsorUniversity of St Andrews. School of Biologyen_US
dc.contributor.sponsorRussell Trusten_US
dc.type.qualificationlevelDoctoralen_US
dc.type.qualificationnamePhD Doctor of Philosophyen_US
dc.publisher.institutionThe University of St Andrewsen_US


This item appears in the following Collection(s)

Show simple item record