The overwhelming majority of research on wild bumble bees has focused on the social colony stage. Nest-founding queens in the early season are difficult to study because incipient nests are challenging to find in the wild, and the foundress queen's flight period is very short relative to the entire

Many plants that bear hidden or recessed floral nectar experience nectar robbing, the removal of nectar by a floral visitor through holes pierced in the corolla. Although robbing can reduce plant reproductive success, many studies fail to find such effects. We outline three mechanistic hypotheses th

Premise of the Study – Flowering time may influence pollination success and seed set through a variety of mechanisms, including seasonal changes in total pollinator visitation or the composition and effectiveness of pollinator visitors. Methods – We investigated mechanisms by which changes in flower

Altered precipitation patterns associated with anthropogenic climate change are expected to have many effects on plants and insect pollinators, but it is unknown if effects on pollination are mediated by changes in water availability. We tested the hypothesis that impacts of climate on plant pollina

This is an Excel file containing one sheet with 23 columns. Each row represents the data and metadata for a single tissue sample from a single individual. Column 1: specifies the species; Column 2: species the individual ID (ID numbers repeat across species); Column 3: specifies the tissue; Column 4

PREMISE OF THE STUDY: Optimal Defense Theory predicts that selection should drive plants to differentially allocate resources for herbivore defense to tissues with high fitness values. As pollen’s primary role is the transport of gametes, plants may be expected to defend it from herbivory. However,