Mapping global bee research with traits and plant-pollinator interaction networks
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Nesbit, Miles Liam
Montauban, Cecilia
Windram, Francis
Pérez, Miguel Santiago Bailey
Hughes, William OH
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Bees sustain key functions in natural ecosystems and agricultural landscapes, yet our understanding of their ecology is typically informed from studies concentrated on a few model taxa. To reveal how this may be biasing our understanding of bee responses and function in the environment we quantify global patterns of research attention across 69,682 bee-related publications to test whether research effort aligns with plant-pollinator network centrality, trait variation, public interest, and socio-economic context. Human managed bees take up most of the research effort; importantly this trend has been increasing over time. Plant–pollinator network centrality is unrelated to research effort; here we reveal genera with high centrality but low research attention as prime candidates for future study. Both pollinator management and sociality have an impact on research effort. Excluding Apis and Bombus (the most traditionally researched genera), managed bee genera are the focus of twice as many papers as wild genera, with the managed share rising over time. Our study reveals and quantifies persistent global research biases and highlights the need for monitoring, risk assessment, and policies that target neglected yet structurally central genera in plant-pollinator interaction networks.
Date Issued
2026-04-20
Date Acceptance
2026-02-23
Citation
Scientific Reports, 2026, 16
ISSN
2045-2322
Publisher
Nature Portfolio
Start Page
12844
Journal / Book Title
Scientific Reports
Volume
16
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2026 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/41807479
PII: 10.1038/s41598-026-41830-7
Subjects
Bees
Conservation
Plant–pollinator networks
Policy
Pollinators
Trait analysis
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Article Number
12844
Date Publish Online
2026-03-10