The recent paper of King et al. (2013) in Methods in Ecology and Evolution criticizes the use of flower visitation in studying pollination networks. Flower visitors are not always equal to flower pollinators. In the mutualistic network of flowers and pollinators, flowers benefit from pollinators for their reproduction, while pollinators benefit from the flowers by obtaining nectar and pollen. If we have to take into account the pollinator effectiveness (how much the pollinator contributes to pollination in one flower visit), why don't we take into account the 'flower effectiveness' (how much rewards the flower gives to the pollinator)? Can a flower visitor that is not a pollinator have an other function in the interaction network? Is it the interaction that matters in a pollination network or is it the pollen and rewards flux ?
I agree with authors that point out the the necessity of include the "quality" of the interactions in plant-pollinator network studies. However, sometimes, this estimates are time demanded or difficult to obtain. Despite their limitations, flower visitation networks are a valuable tool to study plant-pollinator interactions at a community level if we have a full understanding of their limitations and potentials.
Visitor which is nectar robber or thief could have indirect positive effect for plant pollination. Look here: sites.dartmouth.edu/irwinlab/files/2013/03/Irwin-et-al-2010-AREES-nectar-robbing.pdf
Thanks for the replies and suggestion. I agree that including the 'quality' of the interactions would be better, but maybe only 'pollinator effectiveness' is not enough? On addition, I think a flower visitor that is not an effective pollinator, still has its function in the network, because it takes flower rewards and can be competitive to other flower visitors.
Pollen transport networks may be an useful approach. There are already few published studies (including our own: Jędrzejewska-Szmek & Zych 2013, Arthrpod Plant Interact 7:503) that use this data and the results are quite intriguing.
I agrre with Dr Marcin zych. The field of plant-pollinator networks has interesting approaches based on identification of pollen grains by their morphology. I suggest you this interesting paper:
Plant–pollinator networks: adding the pollinator’s perspective. Ecology Letters 2009. Jordi Bosch et al.
The King et al. paper significantly underestimates the amount of time and effort needed to assess pollinator effectiveness, it's not a trivial task for even moderately generalised plant species. Interaction networks of flower visitation provide a first approximation and have similar properties to pollinator visitation networks (see: Ollerton J., Johnson S. D., Cranmer, L. & Kellie, S. (2003) The pollination ecology of an assemblage of grassland asclepiads in South Africa. Annals of Botany 92: 807-834)
It's important to realise that visitation is an ecological interaction regardless of the outcome for the plant, though understanding the role of the flower visitor is important if we wish to study things like floral evolution.
Understanding the effect of flower visitation on animal fitness is much more complex and I don't know of any studies that have yet attempted it except for brood-site pollination systems such as figs and fig wasps, and yuccas and yucca moths.
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