Many experiments have shown that biodiversity enhances ecosystem functioning. However, we have little understanding of how environmental heterogeneity shapes the effect of diversity on ecosystem functioning and to what extent…
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Standard methods for pollen research
“Bee pollen” is pollen collected from flowers by honey bees. It is used by the bees to nourish themselves, mainly by providing royal jelly and brood food, but it is…
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Putative roles of bacteria in the carbon and nitrogen cycles in a tropical peat swamp forest
Tropical peat swamp forests are waterlogged, acidic, anoxic and oligotrophic ecosystems. They are important terrestrial carbon pools that help mitigating global warming through carbon sequestration in peat. This study aimed…
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Effects of three flower field types on bumblebees and their pollen diets
Agri-environment schemes, like flower fields, have been implemented in the EU to counteract the dramatic decline of farmland biodiversity. Farmers in Lower Saxony, Germany, may receive payments for three flower…
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Cryptic species and hidden ecological interactions of halictine bees along an elevational gradient
Changes of abiotic and biotic conditions along elevational gradients represent serious challenges to organisms which may promote the turnover of species, traits and biotic interaction partners. Here, we used molecular…
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Inferring Core Genome Phylogenies for Bacteria
Due to the increasing availability of public bacterial genome data and cost efficiency of novel bacterial strain sequencing, phylogenetic analyses based on more than a single or few marker genes…
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Many small rather than few large sources identified in long-term bee pollen diets in agroecosystems
Bees provide essential ecosystem services such as crop pollination, but perennial colonies of social species require year-round access to floral resources, especially in resource-poor agricultural landscapes. We investigated pollen resources…
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(More than) Hitchhikers through the network: the shared microbiome of bees and flowers
Growing evidence reveals strong overlap between microbiomes of flowers and bees, suggesting that flowers are hubs of microbial transmission. Whether floral transmission is the main driver of bee microbiome assembly,…
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Pollen diets and niche overlap of honey bees and native bees in protected areas
The decline of both managed and wild bee populations has been extensively reported for over a decade now, with growing concerns amongst the scientific community. Also, evidence is growing that…
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Changes amid constancy: Flower and leaf microbiomes along land use gradients and between bioregions
Microbial communities inhabiting above-ground parts of plants affect their host’s development, fitness and function. Although studies on plant-associated microbes are of growing interest, environmental drivers of flower microbiomes in particular…
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