Petals, pigments and pollinator preferences
type: CreativeWork
description: As the world population rises, we will need to grow more food. Insect pollination is essential or beneficial for ~75% of crops, including most fruit, nuts, and commodity crops such as coffee and cocoa, yet there is evidence of significant global decline in insect numbers: this conflict is central to my research. Solutions involve developing self-fertile cultivars (time-consuming and not always possible), large-scale increase of pollinator numbers (possible but involving significant input or change over large areas), or the production of new cultivars which are more attractive to insects and which provide them with more or better nectar and pollen rewards for visiting (the basis of my research). With this latter approach, it will be possible to not only use the existing insect resource more efficiently, but also to increase the available food supply for pollinators, helping to boost their populations. Focussing on strawberries, an important commercial crop whose quality and yield are increased by insect pollination, I have measured nectar and pollen rewards in 20 commercial varieties of strawberry, identifying variation in nectar production based on temperature in some varieties, and variation in pollen quantity and viability. Using an image-recognition program I wrote, I have characterised variation in floral shape for the same varieties, identifying significant variation between varieties in flower size and shape. In our bee behaviour laboratory, I have used plastic artificial ‘flowers’ and lab colonies of bumblebees to test bee responses to the limits of observed variation in shape, in terms of recognition and finding speed, and found that more stellated flower outlines result in a small but non-significant decrease in the time it takes bees to find the 'flowers’. I have conducted experiments to measure bee feeding and vomiting rates when provided with nectar of differing sugar concentrations, which informs models which predict the sucrose concentration within nec…
abstract: As the world population rises, we will need to grow more food. Insect pollination is essential or beneficial for ~75% of crops, including most fruit, nuts, and commodity crops such as coffee and cocoa, yet there is evidence of significant global decline in insect numbers: this conflict is central to my research. Solutions involve developing self-fertile cultivars (time-consuming and not always possible), large-scale increase of pollinator numbers (possible but involving significant input or change over large areas), or the production of new cultivars which are more attractive to insects and which provide them with more or better nectar and pollen rewards for visiting (the basis of my research). With this latter approach, it will be possible to not only use the existing insect resource more efficiently, but also to increase the available food supply for pollinators, helping to boost their populations. Focussing on strawberries, an important commercial crop whose quality and yield are increased by insect pollination, I have measured nectar and pollen rewards in 20 commercial varieties of strawberry, identifying variation in nectar production based on temperature in some varieties, and variation in pollen quantity and viability. Using an image-recognition program I wrote, I have characterised variation in floral shape for the same varieties, identifying significant variation between varieties in flower size and shape. In our bee behaviour laboratory, I have used plastic artificial ‘flowers’ and lab colonies of bumblebees to test bee responses to the limits of observed variation in shape, in terms of recognition and finding speed, and found that more stellated flower outlines result in a small but non-significant decrease in the time it takes bees to find the 'flowers’. I have conducted experiments to measure bee feeding and vomiting rates when provided with nectar of differing sugar concentrations, which informs models which predict the sucrose concentration within nec…
author: Symington, Hamish
language: eng
keywords: Aethionema, Bumblebee drinking, Bumblebees, Crops, Flower colour, Flower shape, Flowers, Insect vision, Pollination
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
date published: 2022-05-31
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:32Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.88969