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10-Minute Presentation

Plant-Insect Ecosystems

10-min: P-IE, Behavior

Do thermal microhabitats influence pollinator foraging behavior? Quantifying flower visitors with automated camera traps

Sunday, November 10, 2024
8:12 AM – 8:24 AM MST
Location: Phoenix Convention Center, 223
Oral Presentation
Rising global temperatures are likely to threaten insect biodiversity and the ecosystem services they provide, including pollination. Insects, which are largely ectothermic, with little or no ability to thermoregulate, may be especially vulnerable to rising external temperatures. To avoid extreme temperatures, insects may utilize microhabitats within the landscape, which can provide many thermal niches, or refugia, providing a buffer from extreme temperatures such as heatwaves. However, our understanding of the importance of microclimatic variation in the foraging behavior of pollinators is limited. Here, we investigated whether microhabitats influenced the foraging behavior of pollinating insects, which provide vital ecosystem services to crop and wild plant species. We established 16 2m2 plots of potted zinnias in a 4x4 array with a 2m grass buffer between plots. Then, we randomly assigned the plots to either the shaded (30% shade cloth; n = 8 plots) or unshaded (n = 8 plots) treatments. Our goal with the shaded treatment was to reduce peak air temperature during sunny days. We monitored pollinator foraging behavior using a combination of human observations and automated pollinator camera traps over six weeks during the summer of 2023 (mid-July through August) in central Wisconsin. A custom, computer-vision pipeline was developed to detect insects, then BeeMachine.ai was used to identify detected insects. We collected 795 minutes of human observations of flowers and the automated camera traps collected 917,140 images. We predicted that flower visitors will prefer unshaded flowers in cooler temperatures, and in warmer temperatures, flower visitors will prefer shaded flowers.