Spring foraging resources and the behaviour of pollinating insects in fixed dune ecosystems
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In temperate climates, foraging resources for pollinating insects are especially important in early spring when animals emerge from hibernation and initiate annual life cycles. One habitat, protected under EU law, which provides resources for a range of pollinating insects, but has received little research attention, is fixed (grey) dunes. Fixed dunes often contain creeping willow (Salix repens, Salicaceae), which may be an important early season resource for obligate flower visitors. We examined the springtime activity of flower visitors in fixed dune ecosystems in relation to sugar concentration and composition in nectar, composition of essential amino acids in pollen, and floral abundance. We also investigated whether the presence or absence of S. repens influenced the abundance and species richness of three obligate flower visiting guilds (solitary bees, bumblebees and hoverflies) in eight sites along the eastern and southern coasts of Ireland. Higher insect visitation rates were observed to species whose nectar contained greater concentrations of glucose and fructose. Solitary bee visitation rates were related to % Essential Amino Acid (EAA) in pollen and floral species richness. Ulex europeaus, and S. repens were the most abundant flowering species, but visitation rates were not related to floral abundance. Higher abundances of bumblebees and hoverflies were discovered at sites where S. repens was present. This study raises further questions about the nutritional requirements and preferences of obligate flower visitors in fixed dune ecosystems in spring time.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".