The primary objective of the Network Monitoring Protocol is to assess relationships between plants and pollinators. Plant-pollinator network monitoring is about documenting pollinator visitation over the course of a growing season to understand how pollinators use flowering plants for nectar and pollen resources. Due to annual fluctuations in climate, weather, and availability of these floral resources, the interactions between plants and pollinators also fluctuate over time. By observing and quantifying patterns of pollinator visitation across different pollinator taxa, we can understand how different subsets of our plants and pollinators are affected by climate change and management activities. Network monitoring can be used to identify priority species, determine gaps in nectar sources based on flowering phenology, and assess the health of our plant-pollinator communities.

Methods: Visiting a Site, Step by Step

IMPORTANT - Following this protocol does not grant you automatic rights to go off-trail in public preserves or enter private property. If you wish to survey off-trail in public preserves, discuss permission with the land manager. Likewise, get permission from the landowner before surveying on private property.

1. Take coordinates for your survey centerpoint – this is important! Make sure to record in decimal coordinates, not degrees/minutes, and ideally at least five digits past the decimal point (e.g. 42.34567, -88.67890).
2. Note weather – temperature, wind, relative humidity, and cloud cover before your first 10 minute survey, and then again every hour you are there (if you decide to stay longer than an hour to do surveys).
3. Photograph your target plant species – take a couple of diagnostic shots of the flowerhead and the leaves. We recommend you start with the most abundantly blooming flower species and work your way from most abundant to least abundant flower species if you are doing multiple 10 minute surveys at a point.
4. Record your start time.
5. Photograph the different pollinator visitors you observe visiting the target plant species for the next 10 minutes, within 33 ft (10 m) of your survey centerpoint. Note: If you are distracted by visitors to a plant that is not your target species, pause your stopwatch until you are able to resume surveying your target plant species. Try to avoid doing this.
6. Record your finish time (note; this should be 10 minutes after your start time unless you are interrupted).
7. Move on to the 2nd most abundant flowering species, and repeat steps 3-6. Do steps 3-6 again for each flowering species as time permits.
8. Upload your data! It is best to upload your data within a few days of your survey if at all possible. To do this, prepare to submit your observations as you would normally do, but under projects, add select “Pollinator Network Monitoring (PolliNet).” You can also do this retroactively with observations you have already posted by entering the project name in the add-to-project sidebar on the right side of the page.

Monitoring Effort – Choose what works best for you!

Now that we discussed how to do a pollinator survey, we discuss the different possible tiers of network monitoring, i.e. how to choose your survey site and when to survey. The goal of this is to offer different levels of effort for volunteers to choose from while still contributing valuable data at every level. Note: you do not need to “sign up” for a tier – your submitted surveys will be sorted into these tiers based upon data you submit when you upload observations to the project (i.e. your survey coordinate and date information).

TIER 1
The entry level is conducting 10-minute observation periods anywhere and anytime.

This monitoring effort is the most flexible and for monitors that want to test out the protocol without being bound to a specific schedule.
Research value: These 10 minute surveys will contribute to pollinator species lists for the plant species surveyed. This can be very useful if a single plant species is surveyed in many different places – we can learn whether pollinator visitor vary by location or are fairly consistent regardless of location.

TIER 2
The next tier is conducting 10-minute observation periods anywhere at a specific preserve that is revisited at any time.

This will allow a monitor to follow pollinator activity at a a preserve or natural area and move around the preserve as floral resources shift over the course of the growing season.
Research value: This data contributes to the research goal in tier 1, and also provides valuable data for the specific preserve that is adopted; as the number of surveys at a preserve increases over the season, we can build more comprehensive pollinator species lists and identify high value floral resources.

TIER 3
The final tier is conducting 10-minute observation periods at a specific survey point within a preserve at a regular interval of time.

A regular time interval is a key way to standardize the cadence of observations as well as the progression of seasonal phenology. The recommended intervals are once a week, once every other week, or once every three weeks – you are free to choose which interval works best for you. If you choose to do this tier, it is very important to record your survey center point accurately and return to the same survey center point on each visit
Research value: Tier 3 surveys contribute to the research goals in Tier 1 & 2, and also allows for more in-depth community network analysis. Visits to a site at regular intervals are the gold standard because the data is collected in a very systematic way both temporally and spatially. This makes it easier to measure how things like management practices, surrounding urban development, and more are affecting pollinator communities at the site.

Methods (In detail)

Pollinator Observations

To conduct pollinator observations for the Network Monitoring Protocol, monitors observe a single species of plant that is in bloom for a period of 10 minutes within 33 feet (10 meters) of your survey centerpoint. During this 10-minute period, monitors will record every distinguishable pollinator species they observe interacting with the flowering plant. We define an interaction as any event where a pollinator species makes physical contact with a reproductive structure of a flowering plant, as each of these events is a chance for pollen transfer to occur. Plants and pollinators should be identified to the best of the monitor’s ability through field guides and publishing observations on iNaturalist, but we expect that plants can be identified to species and that pollinators can be identified to family or genus.

Note on the definition of “pollinator”

In this context we are using pollinator very broadly – you are encouraged to photo-document every kind of visitor to flowers you observe – this includes arthropods that may not be pollinating, such as crab spiders, ambush bugs or caterpillars. If they are on the flower, we are interested in them.

Plant Observations

At the beginning of each 10 minute survey, the monitor should photograph the target plant species they are observing. This plant observation will be submitted to iNaturalist along with any pollinator observations. If a monitor observes a plant species for 10 minutes but does not record any pollinator observations, they should still submit the plant observation (it is very important to record data when a plant species does not seem to be a pollinator resource).
During the 10-minute survey, the monitor should carefully meander throughout the designated area to observe and count interactions on their target plant species to the best of their ability. Observers should try to avoid the bias of focusing on larger pollinators (bumblebees and butterflies) and search for smaller species and use a camera (DSLR, smartphone, point and shoot) to document plant-pollinator interactions. Once every flowering species in the designated area has been observed for a period of 10 minutes, network monitoring is complete! Observations should generally take place between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM local time on days with clear weather and low wind, conditions ideal for pollinator activity. Pollinator observations can be conducted whenever there are flowers in bloom, mid to late April through early October. Peak pollinator activity, depending on the habitat, will occur between May and September.

Sources

This protocol was developed for volunteer monitoring by Dan Sandacz in collaboration with Alma C. Schrage. It is based off protocols used for pollinator network research, primarily from this source:

Claudia L. Jolls, Jaclyn N. Inkster, Brian G. Scholtens, Pati Vitt, Kayri Havens, An endemic plant and the plant-insect visitor network of a dune ecosystem, Global Ecology and Conservation, Volume 18, 2019, e00603, ISSN 2351-9894, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2019.e00603.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989418304396)