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Network research to

help pollinators

Dr Miranda Bane recently finished a PhD in pollinator ecology at the University of Bath,
supervised by Dr Dick James and Dr Michael Pocock, funded by EPSRC.

When we think of pollination, we tend to It was my love of bumblebees, and my
think of bees. Bumblebees are important concern for their future that motivated me
pollinators, essential for the reproduction to study them for my PhD. But instead of
of many plant species, and intrinsically focussing on bumblebees in isolation, I
linked to food production for humans. Of chose to study pollinator communities, in
course, the bumblebees’ hard-working the hope that by understanding the whole
cousin, the honeybee also has a vital role system, we can better protect all of the
to play. And let’s not forget the solitary species involved. This approach is not
bees – extremely diverse (around 250 new; ecology is by definition the study of
different species in the UK alone) and living systems and the interplay between
increasingly recognised as part of the species and their environment. However, in
‘hidden’ pollination workforce. Add to this recent years the progress in social network
the growing list of beetles, butterflies, analysis (think the study of twitter, facebook,
moths and flies recognised as pollinators, and other human interactions) has furthered
and we have a glimpse of the complexity our ability to work with complex ecological
of pollinator communities. communities.

Plant-pollinator networks

We can describe a pollinator community as a
plant-pollinator network. Typically, species
of plants and pollinators are represented
as ‘nodes’. These are then connected by
‘edges’ that represent a known interaction
between the species. An interaction between
a plant and pollinator is generally a feeding
interaction (the pollinator visits the plant to
gather nectar or pollen) and a pollination
interaction (in visiting the plant the insect
may pollinate it). Consider the simple plant-
pollinator network diagram to the right.
It describes a community of 5 pollinator
species, interacting with 4 plant species.
Pollinator B visits plants W and X, while
plant Z is visited by pollinators C, D and E.

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