Optimizing plant species selection for automated monitoring of plant-pollinator interactions

Zhong, Y.; B. Lanuza, J.; Heuschele, J. M.; Glenny, W.; Rakosy, D.; Knight, T.

doi:10.64898/2026.09.22.753407

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bioRxiv · 10.64898/2026.09.22.753407

Optimizing plant species selection for automated monitoring of plant-pollinator interactions

Zhong, Y.·B. Lanuza, J.·Heuschele, J. M.·Glenny, W.·Rakosy, D.·Knight, T.

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Abstract

Automated monitoring camera systems offer an efficient approach for quantifying pollinator biodiversity and plant-pollinator interactions, but financial and logistical constraints limit the number of flowering plant species that can be monitored. Using a large European database of plant-pollinator networks, we evaluated whether plant subsampling can capture key metrics of interest (i.e. pollinator richness and network structure). We compared abundance-based, flower-shape-informed, phylogenetically informed and random plant sampling. Abundance-based sampling consistently outperformed random sampling, while adding flower shape provided little additional benefit and phylogenetic selection performed similarly to random sampling. Overall, monitoring 12-15 flowering species was sufficient to characterize key network properties across varying community sizes. Performance of abundance-based plant sampling declined in species-rich communities and when rare but highly attractive plants were present in the community, while a specific subset of pollinator species was consistently missed even by the best sampling strategy. Based on their relative contribution to interactions within each network, only 12.6% of pollinator species accounted for 95% of interactions, suggesting that AI classifiers could prioritize a relatively small subset of species. Our results provide practical guidance for designing efficient camera-based pollinator monitoring schemes at large spatial scales.

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Zhong, Y., B. Lanuza, J., Heuschele, J. M., Glenny, W., Rakosy, D., Knight, T.. 2026-09-23. Optimizing plant species selection for automated monitoring of plant-pollinator interactions. https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.09.22.753407

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