Diario de jswoosh89

Summary of Observations:
From the observations of pollinators for the duration of the semester, I came up with four observational conclusions/hypothesis. One of which is that, pollinators are more likely to be attracted to colorful flowers and/or plants that produce distinct scents. Another is that, unlike most pollinators that visit multiple flowers at a time, honey bees seem to stay at the same plant until its all depleted of easily available source of nectar before moving to another plant. Additionally, I observed that the diversity of pollinator species during the fall and winter season was quite scarce. Although there were a few other species, such as butterflies, dragonflies, hummingbirds and wasps, the abundance of the observations was that of honey bees. Furthermore, the other species were mostly seen by themselves, while the honey bees were in groups of 5 to 8. And finally, I have seen that most pollinators are more active during certain periods of time. Although this varies from species to species, their pollination patterns are consistent within species.

Conservation Status and Observational trends:
The pollination of flowering plants by animals represents a critical ecosystem service of great value to humanity, both monetary and otherwise. However, the need for active conservation of pollination interactions is only now being appreciated. Pollination systems are under increasing threat from anthropogenic sources, including fragmentation of habitat, changes in land use, modern agricultural practices, use of chemicals such as pesticides and herbicides, and invasions of non-native plants and animals. Honeybees, which themselves are non-native pollinators on most continents, and which may harm native bees and other pollinators, are nonetheless critically important for crop pollination. Recent declines in honeybee numbers in the United States and Europe bring home the importance of healthy pollination systems, and the need to further develop native bees and other animals as crop pollinators. Bees are major pollinators (Kearns & Inouye, pg. 2 ) ; thus, the “pollination crisis” that is evident in declines of honeybees and native bees, and in damage to webs of plant-pollinator interaction, may be ameliorated not only by cultivation of a diversity of crop pollinators, but also by changes in habitat use and agricultural practices, species reintroductions and removals, and other means. In addition, ecologists must redouble efforts to study basic aspects of plant-pollinator interactions if optimal management decisions are to be made for conservation of these interactions in natural and agricultural ecosystems (Kerns, et al., pg.83). Pollinators are keystone species, meaning that a large number of other species depends upon them for their existence. Pollinators are also considered an indicator species, with their well-being connected intimately with the bigger picture of overall environmental health. Dramatic declines in pollinator populations are attributed to three main factors: loss and fragmentation of habitat, degradation of remaining habitat, and pesticide poisoning (Lawton, pg. 3). Although most bees nest in the ground, considerable effort has centered on installing ‘bee hotels’—also known as nest boxes or trap nests—which artificially aggregate nest sites of above ground nesting bees (MacIvor & Parker, pg. 1).

References:
Kearns, C. A., & Inouye, D. W. (1997). Pollinators, flowering plants, and conservation biology. Bioscience, 47(5), 297-307

Kearns, C. A., Inouye, D. W., & Waser, N. M. (1998). ENDANGERED MUTUALISMS: The Conservation of Plant-Pollinator Interactions. Annual Review Of Ecology & Systematics, 2983.
Lawton, B. P. (2010). A Place to Land: The Herb Gardener's Role in Pollinator Conservation. Herbarist, (76), 2-7.

MacIvor, J. S., & Packer, L. (2015). ‘Bee Hotels’ as Tools for Native Pollinator Conservation: A Premature Verdict?. Plos ONE, 10(3), 1-13. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0122126

During my observations of pollinators, I have seen that most pollinators are more active during certain periods of time. Although this varies from species to species, their pollination patterns are consistent within species. For Honey bees and wasps, they are most active during the afternoon from 1 pm to 4 pm (PDT). For butterflies and dragonflies, they are more active midday 11 am to 2 pm (PDT). And for hummingbirds, they are most active during the late afternoon 3 pm to 4 pm (PDT) or early morning 8 am to 10 am (PDT). One trend from all the species observed is that they are all stop pollination after sundown. This might be due to the fact that all are diurnal species; meaning that they are active during the day.

References

Cao, G., Wu, B., Xu, X., Wang, X., & Yang, C. (2017). The effects of local variation in light availability on pollinator visitation, pollen and resource limitation of female reproduction in Hosta ventricosa. Botanical Studies, 58(1), 1-7. doi:10.1186/s40529-017-0180-z

The diversity of pollinator species during the fall and winter season was quite scarce. Although there were a few other species, such as butterflies, dragonflies, hummingbirds and wasps, the abundance of the observations was that of honey bees. Furthermore, the other species were mostly seen by themselves, while the honey bees were in groups of 5 to 8. This might be due to the way honey bees live (in colonies). It is not a surprise that bees are the most abundant of the pollinators; however, the surprise was that there was an lack of all of the other species such as butterflies. This lead to the assumption that during the fall and winter season, the other pollinator species become less active; whereas bees are still very much active. Or another assumptions is that, because of the scarcity of flowering plants during the fall and winter, there is also a lack of pollinators.

References:

Danner, N., Keller, A., Härtel, S., & Steffan-Dewenter, I. (2017). Honey bee foraging ecology: Season but not landscape diversity shapes the amount and diversity of collected pollen. Plos ONE, 12(8), 1-14. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0183716

Hofmann, S., Everaars, J., Schweiger, O., Frenzel, M., Bannehr, L., & Cord, A. F. (2017). Modelling patterns of pollinator species richness and diversity using satellite image texture. Plos ONE, 12(10), 1-17. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0185591

Honey bees were among the most abundant species of pollinators that I observed. Their pollination patterns are very interesting; unlike most pollinators that visit multiple flowers at a time, honey bees seem to stay at the same plant until its all depleted of easily available source of nectar before moving to another plant. Honey bees usually stay at the same plant for quite a while (2 to 5 mins) before moving to another. This is very different from pollinators such as butterflies and dragonflies; which stays on one plant for a short period of time (30 sec to 1 min). This might be due to the fact that the honey bees stay at the same plant in order to save as much energy as possible-- because moving to a new plan cost energy. Furthermore, it might also be due to the fact that honey bees have developed a more effective technique of collecting nectar by trying to acquire all the easily accessible nectar before moving to the next plant.

References:
CEBOTARI, V., BUZU, I., GLIGA, O., POSTOLACHI, O., & GRANCIUC, N. (2017). ESTIMATION OF THE EFFICIENCY OF POLLINATION BY BEES OF SUNFLOWER CULTURE FOR HYBRID SEED PRODUCTION. Scientific Papers: Series D, Animal Science - The International Session Of Scientific Communications Of The Faculty Of Animal Science, 60212-216.

Miller-Struttmann, Nicole E., David Heise, Johannes Schul, Jennifer C. Geib, and Candace Galen. 2017. "Flight of the bumble bee: Buzzes predict pollination services." Plos ONE 12, no. 6: 1-14. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed December 11, 2017).

Most of the pollinators that I observed were honey bees; however, there were also a few butterflies, dragonflies, hummingbirds, wasps, other birds and other insect pollinators. One of the observed behaviors from these species is that they prefer bright flowers. Most of the plants that were being pollinated had very bright colored petals/ flowers. According to an study on the correlation between pollination and floral color, most pollinators, especially bees, are more likely to be more attracted to brightly colored flowers. Furthermore, most plants produce specific floral scents in order to attract more pollinators. Thus, leads to the hypothesis that pollinators are more likely to be attracted to colorful flowers and/or plants that produce distinct scents.

References:

Malerba, R., & Nattero, J. (2012). Pollinator response to flower color polymorphism and floral display in a plant with a single-locus floral color polymorphism: consequences for plant reproduction. Ecological Research, 27(2), 377-385. doi:10.1007/s11284-011-0908-2

Menzel, R., & Shimada, A. (1993). THE ECOLOGY OF FLOWER COLOURS AND THE NATURAL COLOUR VISION OF INSECT POLLINATORS: THE ISRAELI FLORA AS A STUDY CASE, 81-120. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-185X.1993.tb00732.x/full

Page, P., Favre, A., Schiestl, F. P., & Karrenberg, S. (2014). Do Flower Color and Floral Scent of Silene Species affect Host Preference of Hadena bicruris, a Seed-Eating Pollinator, under Field Conditions?. Plos ONE, 9(6), 1-9. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0098755