Study
Why flower visitation is a poor proxy for pollination
King, Caroline; Ballantyne, Gavin; Willmer, Pat G.
Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 2013
Virgin flowers were exposed to exactly one visit by an identified insect, then the stigma was removed and the pollen conspecific to it counted. This measures what a single visit actually delivers, rather than how often a flower is approached.
- Studied in
- Angiospermae, Apis mellifera, Bombus
- Sample size
- single-visit pollen deposition across multiple plant species
Single-visit pollen deposition varied by more than an order of magnitude between visitor species on the same flower, and frequent visitors were often poor depositors. Ranking visitors by frequency produced a different order from ranking them by pollen delivered.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Visitation counts should not be used as a measure of pollination service without deposition data.
How NatureHQ reads it
This is the methodological backbone for the whole "visiting is not pollinating" position, and it is why NatureHQ will not describe an insect as a pollinator of a plant on the strength of photographs of it on the flower. An animal can drink nectar without touching an anther, carry the wrong pollen, or groom off what it collects.
- Labour-intensive, so sample sizes per species pair are small.
- Single visits under observation; a real flower receives many, and the relationship is not linear.
- Deposition is still a proxy for seed set, which is what ultimately matters.
Letting one insect touch one flower, once
Pollinator surveys count visits. Does a visit from one insect deliver the same pollination as a visit from another?
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: Wiley journalsPublished in a Wiley journal.
doi.org/10.1111/2041-210x.12074
This reference was resolved automatically against Crossref on 2026-08-11.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-10.