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OSU researchers study pollination crisis through hummingbirds
Hummingbirds are studied to discover movement between landscapes altered by loss of pollination as well as intact landscapes
Makenna Bishop
Issue date: 2/16/09 Section: News
Research shows there has been a significant global decline in plants and associated pollinators, which has sparked concern for a widespread pollination crisis.
Habitat loss and fragmentation are expected to be at the root of this issue, but the specific causes for the limitation in pollen remain unknown.
Adam Hadley, a doctoral student of forest sciences at OSU, and Matthew Betts, an assistant professor of landscape ecology, are co-authors of an article published online in the conservation biology journal "Biology Letters."
Betts said this is a serious concern since between 70 and 80 percent of all plants are pollinated by animals.
There have been three main hypotheses used to explain this phenomenon.
According to the article, "Tropical deforestation alters hummingbird movement patterns." The first hypothesis has to do with the landscape disturbance that has the potential to negatively affect plant abundance, density and health, which would reduce the amount of pollen available for transfer.
In concordance with the first, another theory is that the abundance, distribution and diversity of pollinators (which plants depend on) may be reduced by land disturbance.
The final hypothesis predicts that the disturbance may restrict movements of the pollinators, which reduces the effectiveness of pollen transfers.
To research this decline in global plant pollination, Betts and Hadley traveled to Costa Rica in order to study green hermit hummingbirds more closely.
Hadley said the green hermit was chosen because they acquire necessary resources from isolated, nectar-rich flowers over a relatively large spatial scale.
These hummingbirds are also forest-dependent but are able to persist in fragmented landscapes, which makes them ideal for comparing movements between altered and the intact landscapes.
There were 19 green hermit hummingbirds used to conduct this research.
According to their journal article, their research capitalized on the recent advances in miniaturization of animal tracking technology.
Habitat loss and fragmentation are expected to be at the root of this issue, but the specific causes for the limitation in pollen remain unknown.
Adam Hadley, a doctoral student of forest sciences at OSU, and Matthew Betts, an assistant professor of landscape ecology, are co-authors of an article published online in the conservation biology journal "Biology Letters."
Betts said this is a serious concern since between 70 and 80 percent of all plants are pollinated by animals.
There have been three main hypotheses used to explain this phenomenon.
According to the article, "Tropical deforestation alters hummingbird movement patterns." The first hypothesis has to do with the landscape disturbance that has the potential to negatively affect plant abundance, density and health, which would reduce the amount of pollen available for transfer.
In concordance with the first, another theory is that the abundance, distribution and diversity of pollinators (which plants depend on) may be reduced by land disturbance.
The final hypothesis predicts that the disturbance may restrict movements of the pollinators, which reduces the effectiveness of pollen transfers.
To research this decline in global plant pollination, Betts and Hadley traveled to Costa Rica in order to study green hermit hummingbirds more closely.
Hadley said the green hermit was chosen because they acquire necessary resources from isolated, nectar-rich flowers over a relatively large spatial scale.
These hummingbirds are also forest-dependent but are able to persist in fragmented landscapes, which makes them ideal for comparing movements between altered and the intact landscapes.
There were 19 green hermit hummingbirds used to conduct this research.
According to their journal article, their research capitalized on the recent advances in miniaturization of animal tracking technology.
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