Plant-pollinator relationships are an ecologically critical form of interaction that ensures the long-term survival of the majority of the world’s plant species, and contribute to a large fraction of global agricultural output. In addition, interactions between plants and pollinators has been responsible for generating much of the diversity within the flowering plants.
Despite that global significance, most studies of plant-pollinator interactions are done at a local level, involving populations and communities of species, over modest time scales. The ways in which these local sets of interactions scale up to produce global biogeographic and macroevolutionary patterns, and the processes underpinning them, is less well understood.
Hear from Jeff Ollerton, a worldwide expert in plant pollination, in the video below.
More about Jeff
Jeff Ollerton is Professor of Biodiversity at the University of Northampton in the UK. As a professional scientist and educator for almost 30 years Jeff has developed an international profile in the field of biodiversity, focused particularly on understanding and conserving plant-pollinator interactions.
This has led to research collaborations spanning many countries across all continents, funded by a range of UK and international agencies and charities. In addition to undertaking research and teaching he is in demand as an advisor for governments, media, and charities, and lectures and writes for the general public as well as his peers.
To date he has published 115 peer reviewed research papers, book chapters and edited volumes, as well as more popular articles, book reviews, and essays. Journals publishing his work include Nature, Science, Ecology, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, and Ecology Letters. He is currently completing a book entitled Pollinators and Pollination: nature and society, which is due for publication in 2020.