figshare
Browse
1/1
4 files

Beta Diversity of Plant-Pollinator Interactions in Anthropogenic Landscapes

dataset
posted on 2021-11-01, 02:09 authored by Cian WhiteCian White

Data are of plant-pollinator interactions from twenty-one sites in the Dublin region of Ireland (Figure 1) sampled four times between 5 May and 20 August 2018 at monthly intervals. Plants and pollinators were sampled along a 2m x 1km transect within each 1.5km radius site, with sub-sections of the transect allocated proportionately to all land cover types comprising more than 1% of the selected site (e.g. pasture, arable, continuous urban fabric; see Figure S1 Legend). Transects in residential areas were positioned along the boundary between pavements and residential gardens, so that 1m of the transect width was located in gardens and the other 1m was located on pavements and road verges. Transect locations were chosen using a random number generator to select points, and transect sections were located as close as possible to those points. Where land cover types were particularly dominant within a site, a maximum transect section length of 250m was walked, with multiple transects of the same land cover walked across multiple locations.

Flowers were sampled by noting every flowering species on the outward walk of the transect and then counting the floral units of each species on the return walk. A floral unit was defined as an individual flower or collection of flowers that an insect of 5 mm body length could walk between (see Baldock et al. 2015, Supplementary Material Table S4) and comprised a single capitulum for Asteraceae, a secondary umbel for Apiaceae and a single flower for most other taxa. Grasses, sedges and wind-pollinated forbs were not sampled.

Flower-visitor interactions were quantified by walking along each transect and recording every insect on flowers up to 1m either side of the transect line to a height of 2m, where appropriate, e.g. along hedgerows. An attempt was made to net all bees and hoverflies (Syrphidae), which were frozen and later identified to species. All other flower visiting insects were recorded at the family level (Coleoptera, Diptera, Lepidoptera). Bees and hoverflies were identified using Falk (2015) and Stubbs & Falk (2002) respectively, with identifications checked by taxonomists (See Acknowledgements). Plants were identified using Rose & O’Reilly (2006) and the phone application Plantnet (available at: https://identify.plantnet-project.org/), 85% to species and the rest to genus or morpho species. Sampling for flower visitors and their interactions took place between 09:00 and 19:00 hours on dry, warm, non-windy days.

Funding

European Community’s Framework Program Horizon 2020 for the Connecting Nature Project (GrantAgreement number: 730222)

Trinity College Dublin Studentship

History