Pollination in the Middle East

Pollination networks have traditionally been seen as static, specialised systems. This view has supported the concept of pollination syndromes; the idea that plants evolve particular traits that attract specific pollinator types. However, this view has been challenged in the last few decades as a co...

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Main Author: Monks, Joseph
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61234/
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author Monks, Joseph
author_facet Monks, Joseph
author_sort Monks, Joseph
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Pollination networks have traditionally been seen as static, specialised systems. This view has supported the concept of pollination syndromes; the idea that plants evolve particular traits that attract specific pollinator types. However, this view has been challenged in the last few decades as a community level approach has revealed plants are visited by a wide range of taxa. Conversely, xeric environments are rich in oligolectic bee species, suggesting specialism is dominant in this habitat type. This thesis used the Hajar Mountains in Oman as a study site to investigate how visitation networks change temporally and spatially. Specialism appears to be the governing process across all types of flower visitor, not just bee species. However, when a temporal approach is taken, species replacement was extremely high, indicating a constant fluctuation in the composition of the networks in this mountain range, which like in other studies challenges the notions regarding floral syndromes. Species distribution models show a degree of homogenisation in bee communities across the Arabian Peninsula. This contrasts at more local level as seen in the Hajar Mountains. Further studies are now needed to DNA barcode pollen loads from bee specimens collected during the study and region as a whole. This would allow a clearer understanding of network dynamics and help clarify whether the observed specialism seen in this study reflects evolutionary specialism or simply floral constancy.
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format Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
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institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
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language English
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spelling nottingham-612342025-02-28T14:59:55Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61234/ Pollination in the Middle East Monks, Joseph Pollination networks have traditionally been seen as static, specialised systems. This view has supported the concept of pollination syndromes; the idea that plants evolve particular traits that attract specific pollinator types. However, this view has been challenged in the last few decades as a community level approach has revealed plants are visited by a wide range of taxa. Conversely, xeric environments are rich in oligolectic bee species, suggesting specialism is dominant in this habitat type. This thesis used the Hajar Mountains in Oman as a study site to investigate how visitation networks change temporally and spatially. Specialism appears to be the governing process across all types of flower visitor, not just bee species. However, when a temporal approach is taken, species replacement was extremely high, indicating a constant fluctuation in the composition of the networks in this mountain range, which like in other studies challenges the notions regarding floral syndromes. Species distribution models show a degree of homogenisation in bee communities across the Arabian Peninsula. This contrasts at more local level as seen in the Hajar Mountains. Further studies are now needed to DNA barcode pollen loads from bee specimens collected during the study and region as a whole. This would allow a clearer understanding of network dynamics and help clarify whether the observed specialism seen in this study reflects evolutionary specialism or simply floral constancy. 2020-10-15 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61234/1/Joseph%20Monks%20Corrected%20Thesis.pdf Monks, Joseph (2020) Pollination in the Middle East. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. Pollination Bees Network Oman Temporal
spellingShingle Pollination
Bees
Network
Oman
Temporal
Monks, Joseph
Pollination in the Middle East
title Pollination in the Middle East
title_full Pollination in the Middle East
title_fullStr Pollination in the Middle East
title_full_unstemmed Pollination in the Middle East
title_short Pollination in the Middle East
title_sort pollination in the middle east
topic Pollination
Bees
Network
Oman
Temporal
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61234/