Jeff Ollerton, Professor of Biodiversity within the Department, spent the last two weeks of November 2013 the Atlantic Rainforest of Brazil undertaking field work on the ecology of plants and their pollinators.
The field work is the final stage of Professor Ollerton's
month long visit to Brazil, a trip which has seen him travel over 2,500km,
speak at the National Botanical Congress, and present lectures at institutions
throughout the country. Professor Ollerton has also taught a one-week long
pollination biology course to a group of postgrads and professors at the
University of Campinas, which included the students undertaking field work on
their own campus.
In the field, Professor Ollerton collected data on the
proportion of animal versus wind pollinated plants across different Brazilian
plant communities. His data collection
will compare plants in dry tropical vegetation (in the Serra do Cipó National
Park), to those growing in the mountain ranges of Serro do Mar in the South
East of the country. The plant species are given scores based on the type of
flowers, pollen release and flower visitors that they have. The research
undertaken so far fits with predictions made in Professor Ollerton's 2011
study, published in the journal Oikos,
suggesting that 90 per cent of plants within tropical communities are
pollinated by animals, compared to 70-80 per cent on average in the temperate
zone.
The trip is part of an ongoing collaboration with PhD
student André Rodrigo Rech and his Brazilian supervisor Professor Marlies
Sazima as part of the "Science Without Borders" scheme. Staff and students were able keep up to date
with Professor Ollerton's adventures as he blogged each week from Brazil,
beginning here: http://jeffollerton.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/brazil-diary-1/
