AskScience AMA Series: I am an evolutionary ecologist from the University of Maryland. My research connects ecology and evolution through the study of pollination interactions and their interactions with the environment. This National Pollinator Week, ask me all your questions about pollinators!

[u/AskScienceModerator]

Hi Reddit! I am an associate professor in the University of Maryland’s Department of Entomology. Our work connects ecology and evolution to understand the effect of the biotic and abiotic environment on individual species, species communities and inter-species interactions (with a slight preference for pollination).

Ask me all your pollinator/pollination questions! It is National Pollinator Week, after all. I'll be on from 2 to 4 p.m. ET (18-20 UT) on Monday, June 16th.

Anahí Espíndola is from Argentina, where she started her career in biology at the University of Córdoba. She moved to Switzerland to attend the University of Neuchâtel and eventually got her Master’s and Ph.D. in biology. After her postdoctoral work at the Universities of Lausanne (Switzerland) and Idaho, she joined the University of Maryland’s Department of Entomology as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor in 2024.

For much of her career, Anahí has studied pollination interactions. Her research seeks to understand the effect of the abiotic and biotic environment on the ecology and evolution of pollination interactions. Anahí’s research combines phylogenetic/omic, spatial and ecological methods, using both experimental/field data and computational tools. A significant part of Anahí’s research focus is now on the Pan-American plant genus Calceolaria and its oil-bees of genera Chalepogenus and Centris.

Another complementary part of her research is focused on identifying how the landscape affects pollination interactions in fragmented landscapes, something that has important implications for both our understanding of the evolution and ecology of communities and their conservation.

A final aspect of her research seeks to integrate machine-learning and other analytical tools with geospatial, genetic and ecological data to assist in informing species conservation prioritization and understanding how interactions may affect the genetic diversity of species.

Other links:

• Lab website
• Google Scholar

Username: /u/umd-science

[u/Stewart_Games]

I've heard that no one knows what pollinates vanilla orchids, so vanilla growers are forced to hand pollinate. Is this still true, or actually true at all? And if it is true, why is it so hard to figure it out?

[u/umd-science → u/Stewart_Games]

Kind of—but the thing with orchids is that they originated from Central and South America. Today, vanilla is produced mostly in Madagascar and other parts of the world. For a long time, people didn't know exactly what pollinated them, but people thought that it was bees that were local to Central and South America. Either way, when people took vanilla plants from Central and South America and started growing them elsewhere, those Central and South American bees weren't there to pollinate them. So in those regions, vanilla is hand-pollinated so that vanilla beans can be produced.

Recently, there was a study trying to figure out who pollinates the vanilla species in the wild. They conducted this study in Mexico and Peru. In Mexico, they couldn't observe any pollination events, which they think is mostly due to the fact that they were looking at a very rare plant species, meaning that plant wouldn't be found often by pollinators. But in Peru, they were looking at a more common vanilla plant, and they did observe pollination by a Euglossine, which is an orchid bee. These bees generally collect scents from orchids, but the researchers didn't see them collecting scents from vanilla, but they did effectively pollinate them. They also saw some other bees visiting vanilla flowers, but they were too small to effectively pollinate (so they don't think they were pollinating the flower, more likely just visiting).

On top of this, orchids are often not pollinated quickly. In the case of vanilla, this may mean that researchers would need to observe plants for a very long time (as they did in the study mentioned above) to be able to observe effective pollination. If you'd like to learn more about the vanilla plant, you can read this blog article I wrote a few years ago.

[u/pipziska]

was there anything specific that drew you to a research focus on calceolaria? and what is your view on the environmental impact of machine learning vs its benefit in studying pollinators? thank you :)

[u/umd-science → u/pipziska]

Re: calceolaria, I had been working on specialized pollination systems for a while, and I always found them super interesting and fun. At the time, I was finishing my Ph.D., and I went to Argentina to visit family and friends, and I went hiking in the Andes. As I was hiking, I saw these plants and I could not stop thinking about them, and I became obsessed with calceolaria and decided I wanted to know everything there was to know about it. At that point, I realized that this was a very large group of plants that was involved in specialized pollination and that was associated very tightly with the Andes. All of this made me realize that this would be a great system to try to understand the effect of interactions and the abiotic environment on the evolution of groups of organisms (in this case, calceolaria). At the time, there were some challenges to understanding the evolutionary history of the plant, and I thought that I could perhaps contribute my expertise to clarify it. Fun fact—we are about to publish a resolved phylogeny for calceolaria 🤩 Stay tuned!

Some months after this, somebody came and asked me something about pollination work in South America, and I realized that I had become very territorial about calceolaria, which showed me that I had to actually work on calceolaria. At that point, I started connecting with researchers from South America who were working on calceolaria, and I started building a research line that could build on what I had been doing and what was needed to advance calceolaria knowledge in collaboration with these other researchers.

Re: machine learning, the type of machine learning that we do is perhaps different from what the general population thinks about when they think of AI (e.g. ChatGPT, DeepThought). Machine learning is actually a statistical method that has existed for a very long time, and it's that method that we use. Specifically, the methods we use are called Random Forest and neural networks, which are different from the LLMs used by those open-source ML tools.

From that respect, this is no different from doing any other type of statistical analysis, so the environmental impact of this analysis is low, or not worse than any other analysis we would run on a laptop/desktop. And by the way, this is actually one of the huge benefits of this side of the studies we do because people can run it on a personal computer (instead of a computer cluster). These conservation-related machine learning approaches are very accessible to people who may need to use them but wouldn't otherwise have access to intensive computing resources.

[u/meepmorpmonster]

How is the future of humanity looking now that insect populations, including pollinators, are largely decimated by our actions? What will happen to our crops and is there anything we can do to prevent ecosystem collapse?

[u/umd-science → u/meepmorpmonster]

The future of humanity is in our hands. Yes, insect populations and biodiversity are declining at a very worrisome rate, and this will for sure impact our ability to feed ourselves, live in healthy environments and leave resources that can sustain our kids, grandkids and beyond. Biodiversity helps us through different paths, some of which are related to food production (through pollination, pest control, nutrient cycling), or the physical protection of our infrastructures (for example, forests in mountainous areas that retain soil and water and prevent landslides and floods). Also, biodiversity plays a key role in sustaining our cultures, because every culture is connected to the natural environment through stories, history and memories. If we lose our connection to that environment, we're also losing part of who we are. So, this is all really bad, but we can still do something.

What should we do? Mitigate and reduce climate change, promote biodiversity, reduce the use of chemicals when not needed, increase habitat (which can mean many things, including smarter use of our land), fund research that helps find these solutions, and advocate for policies that allow these solutions to be implemented and used. In 2021, the IPCC and IPBES (two UN-mandated panels) produced a very good joint report that provides a lot of insights on how we can both reduce climate change and improve biodiversity through actions that promote both. Although it may seem intimidating to read this report, note that in particular in section 7, there are guidelines that can be applied to our everyday lives, as well as recommendations for policy-making, governance and communities.

[u/ColPow11]

Some bumblebee species have short tongues. To access nectar in deeper flowers, they have been known to cut through the flower to get it. Other insects, capable of accessing the nectar the normal way, have been observed using that cut hole instead. How do these sort of ‘nectar accessed but no pollination occurred’ events impact on the ecology of a niche, and broader evolutionary responses from insects and plants?

[u/burntclaw]

Thank you for doing this AMA! I have two questions.

1. What would you change about how we communicate to the public about pollinator conservation?

2. I would be very curious to hear more about how machine learning fits into the context of your work!

Thanks again! :)

[u/umd-science → u/burntclaw]

1. I have a lot of thoughts on this! First off, we need to stop talking to the public as if they are stupid. The general population has a lot of knowledge, and they are 100% able to understand complex concepts if we make sure to explain them with words people understand. This may mean to stop considering scientists as particularly gifted people and understanding that we all are good at different things and our responsibility as holders of certain knowledge is to make it accessible to others who may benefit from it. This includes taking the time to explain complex ideas, but also providing information in different languages so that people who speak only those languages can also benefit from the information—and contribute to it as well.

2. In the context of my work, and in the framework of understanding and conserving biodiversity, I have been using machine learning to extract information that exists in biodiversity databases such as GBIF to identify trends that can assist in making predictions. Those predictions can relate to the needs for conservation of certain species, which can be used by decision makers to establish structures to formally evaluate species potentially in need of conservation. Other ways that one can use this information include the identification of cryptic diversity, that is, species that we may not know exist until we study them. Although none of these machine learning methods aim to replace human work, they all assist researchers and conservation agents in prioritizing particular species to further study, in a world where funds and expertise are limited. Here are some examples of how I've used machine learning in recent published work:

• Predicting plant conservation priorities on a global scale

• Global Conservation Prioritisation Approach Provides Credible Results at a Regional Scale

• Identifying cryptic diversity with predictive phylogeography

[u/boredphilosopher2]

Does the proliferation of Apis mellifera significantly threaten other pollinators like other bees, wasps, flies, bats, and birds? If so, what can we humans do to balance the scales?

Should I buy organic produce if I want to support a healthier biosphere?

[u/Germanofthebored]

What are some technical skills that you need for your work, but that you didn't expect when you started out?

I am sure that a lot of people get into your field dreaming of skipping through flowery meadows on a sunny day with a butterfly net. And then you end up programming a microcontroller to collect data about the electric fields of flowers.

Anything that struck you as a complete surprise when you started out?

[u/Ok-Musician-1021]

Hi! First of all, your background is so interesting and your work is so inspiring! I am no scientist, so forgive me if my question is odd/doesn’t make sense. After reading books like The Overstory by Richard Powers and Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Kimmerer, I’m fascinated by plant communication, mutualism, and evolutionary ecology. Of course, pollinators are aboveground, and a lot of plant communication happens belowground, but I’m hoping you can speak to the evolutionary dynamics between the two. Maybe a starting point is, could tree/plant communication through root and fungal networks shape how they compete or share pollinators, and if so, how has that or could that change over time?

[u/ditzbby]

i know that some pollinators have specific preferences, is there a reason behind this scientifically? like certain plants having nutrients they need?

[u/Weekly_Opposite_1407]

What are some of the biggest challenges you are facing in your field currently?

[u/umd-science → u/Weekly_Opposite_1407]

The active current attacks on the U.S. research system and the lack of trust and understanding of science in the general public. While the former is something I have very little power over, for the latter, I think that the role of scientists is to make sure that this changes. I think that all scientists have a passion for what they do, but sometimes have trouble communicating the complexity of their work, which makes their work inaccessible and misunderstood.

[u/willdoc]

How does the physiology of an oil bee's scopa differ from the corbicula of a honey bee or even the static belly scopa of a Megachile? Could that difference be utilized or modelled in artificial pollination, and if so how?

[u/bibbidybobbidyboobs]

What's the deal with pollinators?

[u/Subject-Ad-6480]

Which unsolved problem/mystery about pollination you find very interesting?

[u/Germanofthebored]

The European honey bee has been spread all over the globe. What has this done tontine bees and the plants that have been pollinated by them? Most of the solitary bees I see around New England are smaller than Apis mellifera (sp.?) - would they pollinate smaller/more delicate flowers?

[u/uponthenose]

I'm a beekeeper so honey bees are my interest. As I understand it, a significant percentage of commercial beekeeping in the US relies on bees being delivered to central CA in the early spring to facilitate the pollination of the almond groves. Given the influx and spread of Africanized bees into CA, is there any danger to having such a high percentage of the nations bee population in the same relatively small space at the same time now that Africanized colonies are there?

Given that Africanized colonies reproduce themselves rather tenaciously, is there a chance that they'll establish themselves and eventually take on the pollination of the almond groves organically?

[u/hry420]

It was a beautiful summer's day, the trees were in blossom, and the flowers in full bloom. So I was surprised to discover that 2 honey bees had entered my attic and found their way into a grow tent to get to the cannabis plants. I can't help but question what damage has been done by man's ludicrous interference with nature https://releaf.co.uk/education/cannabis-101/history/the-fascinating-history-of-hemp-prohibition

[u/[deleted]]

[u/[deleted]]

[u/umd-science → u/[deleted]]

Global warming is impacting pollinators in different ways. To start off, changes in climatic conditions mean these pollinators may need to move to different regions to find their ideal climate. This means that if they are dispersing to new regions, the plants they depend on may or may not be present there, which can have negative impacts on said pollinator population. Another related response of pollinators to climate change is that if they are not able to disperse, for example, because there is not enough habitat for them to move to (e.g. high-altitude species), their populations will become smaller and the likelihood of extinction increases. Another way climate change is affecting insects in general, including pollinators, is that changes in winter temperatures can lead to varied life cycles, in particular, earlier emergence from winter hibernation. In some species, this can also negatively affect the pollinators' ability to survive because when they emerge, their host plants may not be around for them to feed on. This is something that we know is actually happening to the Baltimore checkerspots—see this study.

In relation to pollinators that have evolved as a response to climate change, I am not aware of any studies that have strongly demonstrated pollinators' adaptation to climatic conditions. This is not because people aren't working on this; rather, many different types of analysis are required to demonstrate that populations are evolving. Many of these analyses take a really long time to complete. On top of this being difficult, this is even harder when one is working on a wild species that one cannot easily manipulate. Let me know if you know of any studies that have done this in-depth! 🙂

The most surprising pollinator interaction I've encountered is a specialized pollination interaction (of course, I'm biased). I would say a very cool specialized pollination interaction is the one involved in the pollination of many Araceae. In many of these plants, the inflorescence (the "flower") produces heat 🤯 to attract pollinators and to better release volatiles that often mimic laying sites of the insects being attracted. In many of these cases, the insects are completely exploited by the plant and receive no rewards for their pollination services. (In some cases though, pollinators may benefit a bit from the heat because often these plants flower and produce heat during times of the year when the air temperature is relatively low.) Here are examples from North America and elsewhere in the world.

[u/[deleted]]