Flowering plants and their arthropod visitors account for approximately 1/3 of described extant species on Earth (1), making the flower-arthropod interface a pillar of global biodiversity. Inspired by the classical work of Charles Robertson (2), the goal of this project is to document linked observations of flowers and arthropod visitors.

Please note that this project is not just about pollination interactions. We are interested in all associations between arthropods and flowers, including predation, nesting, mating, etc. A fly caught in a pitcher plant is as valid an observation as a bee on a daisy. A jumping spider eating a bee on a daisy is equally legitimate.

There are no geographical constraints to this project, but I encourage you to follow Robertson's example by focusing your efforts on a particular place. Robertson's place was Carlinville. IL. Mine is Philadelphia, PA. Where is yours? Put it on the map!

Observations added to this project must be linked in the observation fields such that photos of the arthropod visitor are paired with a photos of the visited flower, ideally using duplicates of the same photos. For example, if I photographed Bombus impatiens visiting Helianthus tuberosus, I would take the following steps:

1. Upload the photo(s)
2. Identify the observation as B. impatiens
3. Duplicate the observation
4. Identify the duplicate observation as H. tuberosus
5. In the Observation Fields section, add the "linked observation" field; paste in the URL of the H. tuberosus observation into the linked observation field of the B. impatiens observations, and paste the URL of the B. impatiens observation into that of the H. tuberosus observation.
6. Add each observation to our project, Arthropod-Flower Associations

NOTE: Please try to take leaf and whole-plant photos in addition to flower photos -- it's important that our plants be identified with the same rigor as our arthropods.

If you have any difficulties with this workflow, or any questions or comments about the project, please feel free to contact me at sponslerdb@gmail.com. Thanks for your efforts!

References
(1) Wardhaugh (2015) Arthropod-Plant Interactions, DOI 10.1007/s11829-015-9398-4
(2) https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/150283#/details menos ↑