Mechanisms underlying crop pollinator effectiveness in agro-ecosystems

该项目旨在了解传粉媒介如何影响水果的数量和质量。在世界范围内，昆虫传粉媒介促进了生产系统中的生物多样性和生态系统服务，但也导致依赖传粉媒介的作物产量变化。计算每次传粉者访问所传递花粉的数量、质量和时间的综合结果是作物授粉生态学中一个关键但尚未开发的组成部分。该项目将定量评估传粉媒介群落的有效性，以确定传粉媒介群落组成对作物产量最大化的重要性。该项目有望保护澳大利亚的粮食资源和经济效益。

This project aims to understand how pollinators affect fruit quantity and quality. Worldwide, insect pollinators contribute to biodiversity and ecosystem services in production systems, but also cause yield variability in pollinator-dependent crops. Accounting for the combined outcomes of the amount, quality and timing of the pollen transferred by each pollinator visit is a critical but unexplored component of crop pollination ecology. This project will quantitatively assess the effectiveness of pollinator communities to determine the importance of pollinator community composition to maximising crop production. This project is expected to protect food resources and economically benefit Australia.