The importance of pollinator behaviour and heterospecific pollen deposition to crop pollination service delivery

Abstract

<p>The dataset consists of six tabs (each referring to a data chapter of the thesis). Data related to this dataset was collected online from Scopus research database (Chapter 2), and in the field from Lake Powell, Victoria, Australia (Chapter 5), and from the East-North Coast of New South Wales, Australia (chapters 3, 4, 6, and 7). Each tab has a spreadsheet with data from each thesis research chapter, and the content of each tab is explained below:</p> <p>Chapter 2: A review of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) interactions with other pollinators. The dataset consists of information extracted from reviewed articles, such as the title of the article, the authors, the year of publication, the country in which the research was performed, the place of study (i.e., open fields, or enclosed areas like glasshouses, cages, etc.), whether the study aimed to test competition or not, whether the study found and/or discussed competition or not, the type of interaction (i.e., direct or indirect) between honey bees and other species, the main methods used to perform the research, the interacting species with honey bees, and the behaviour performed by honey bees during the interaction.</p> <p>Chapter 3: Observation of birds foraging on raspberry orchards. The dataset consists of the number of instances insectivorous or nectarivorous birds were seen perched on cages containing brown blowflies, within a raspberry orchard block. The first column is the days since flies were released inside cages until birds were seen inside the same cages, column two is the number of observational hours on each day of data collection, the following four columns have the bird species name and the number of individuals of each species, and the last column is the total number of individuals.</p> <p>Chapter 4: Effectiveness of brown honeyeater (Lichmera indistincta) in pollinating blueberry flowers compared to insect pollinators. The dataset consists of stigmas collected after a single visit by one pollinator species. The first column is the pollinator ID, the second column is the identification of the stigma sampled, and the last column is the number of conspecific (i.e., blueberry) pollen grains deposited.</p> <p>Chapter 5: Pollen collection by honey bee hives in almond orchards. The data consists of pollen pellets removed from different hives placed in almond orchards for pollination. The first column is the almond flower abundance during the flowering season (measures were always taken from the same tree branch throughout the study period), column two is the day of data collection (11 days in total), column three is the apiary identification, column four is the hive identification, column five is the heterospecific pollen richness (number of species), column six is the abundance of heterospecific pollen, column seven is the weight of heterospecific pollen collected from each hive, column eight is the weight of almond pollen collected from each hive, column nine is the total weight.</p> <p>Chapter 6: Impacts of protective nets on pollen flow in blueberry orchards. The dataset consists of analyses of pollen deposition on blueberry stigmas under different netting treatments. The first column is the blueberry plant variety stigma was sampled from, column two the orchard block identification, column three is the netting treatment (i.e., covered - block completely covered by nets, partially - block partially covered by nets with sides open, and open - no nets), column four is the week of data collection (seven weeks in total), column five is the abundance of blueberry flower within each block (measures were always taken from the same blueberry plant), column six is the conspecific pollen abundance, column seven is the heterospecific pollen abundance on the stigmas, column eight is the heterospecific pollen richness in the stigmas, column nine is the point of data collection within the orchards (i.e., edge or center), and the last column is the number of non-blueberry flowers present in the remnant vegetation surrounding the orchard blocks.</p> <p>Chapter 7: Effects of multiple visits on pollen deposition in blueberry, blackberry, and raspberry flowers. The dataset consists of pollen deposition analyses after multiple visits by different insect taxa in blueberry, blackberry, and raspberry flowers. The first column is the sample identification, column two is the crop species (i.e., Rubus sp - raspberry, rabbiteye - blueberry, or blackberry), column three is the crop species variety, column four is the block identification, column five is the date of sample collection, column six is the row number within the block that the sample was collected from, column seven is the identification tag used for the sample during collection, column eight is the total number if visits received by the sample (i.e., stigma), column nine is the combination of species that visited the stigma (i.e., MX - mix of species, SB - stingless bees, HB - honey bees, CR - carpenter bees), column ten is the number of conspecific pollen counted on the stigma, column eleven is the number of heterospecific pollen counted on the stigma, column twelve is the richness of heterospecific pollen counted on the stigma, column thirteen is the total visit duration time in seconds, column fourteen to thirty four is the visit duration of each subsequent visit.</p>