Plate Nº 53 · recorded October 10, 2026
Biology & EvolutionReported finding
Climate, not latitude, drives global plant-pollinator specialization
Analysis of 3,415 plant-pollinator networks and 110,000 species links finds climate outperforms latitude in explaining which partnerships are tightest, with implications for crops.
By Priya Raman3 min read587 words
In brief
- Researchers analyzed 3,415 plant-pollinator networks from 162 studies, covering more than 110,000 interactions.
- The dataset includes 5,343 pollinator species and 6,126 plant species collected by 142 researchers from 32 countries on six continents.
- Specialization peaked near the northern boundary between tropical and subtropical zones, not in the deepest tropics, contradicting a long-standing assumption.
- Temperature and rainfall predicted specialization patterns better than latitude did, with effects varying by pollinator group.
- Published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2026; DOI: 10.1038/s41559-026-03170-7.
A global analysis of 3,415 plant-pollinator networks across 162 studies has found that climate, not latitude, best explains how tightly flowering plants depend on specific pollinators. Published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, the study draws on more than 110,000 recorded interactions among 5,343 pollinator species and 6,126 plant species from all major terrestrial biomes.
The project brought together 142 researchers from 32 countries on six continents. Sailee Sakhalkar, who recently completed her doctorate at Charles University in Prague (CUNI), led the work alongside Robert Tropek, head of the Insect Community Ecology Research Group at CUNI and the Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences (BC CAS).
What is pollination specialization?
Pollination lets plants reproduce, maintain genetic diversity, and produce the fruits and seeds that feed animals. Many flowering plants rely on one type of pollinator, while others accept visits from a wide range of visitors. The pollinators include:
- Bees
- Flies
- Beetles
- Butterflies and moths
- Wasps
- Hummingbirds
- Lizards and other reptiles
"Specialization can be understood as an evolutionary bargain," Sakhalkar said. "A close match can make feeding and pollination very efficient, but it also increases dependence. If one partner disappears or becomes active at a different time, a specialist has fewer alternatives."
Does specialization peak in the tropics?
For decades, ecologists have expected specialized plant-pollinator relationships to be most common near the equator, where species diversity is highest. The new study tests that assumption using an unusually large data set.
Sakhalkar noted that the scale of the analysis required worldwide cooperation. "By combining the work of researchers from across the world, we could finally see both the global picture and the enormous variety within it," she said.
How did climate outperform latitude?
The result contradicted expectations. Specialized relationships were not most common in the deepest tropics. Instead, they often peaked near the northern boundary between tropical and subtropical zones, and each plant or pollinator group followed its own pattern.
Temperature and rainfall predicted global patterns of specialization better than latitude did. The strength of these effects also varied sharply among pollinator groups.
"We tend to draw geographic patterns in pollination as lines running from the poles to the equator," Tropek said, "but plants and pollinators do not experience latitude itself. They experience heat, cold, rain and changing seasons, each in their own way."
What does this mean for climate change?
Because climate drives the structure of these partnerships, shifts in temperature and rainfall may redraw the maps and calendars of plant-pollinator encounters. Crops with specialized pollinators could be especially exposed.
"Climate change is unlikely to alter every pollination network in the same way," Tropek added. "In many places, plants may be vulnerable to the loss of their specialized pollinators, leading to lower fruit set and declining populations. The risks may be particularly high in the most specialized communities."
If a plant or pollinator depends on only a small number of partners, the loss of even one due to changing climate may be hard to compensate for. More flexible species, in contrast, may be able to switch to other partners.
What are the study's limits?
The authors caution that the data set, while large, is uneven. Tropical regions and certain pollinator groups remain under-sampled, so estimates for those areas carry more uncertainty. The team plans to expand the network and track how specialization shifts over time as climates change.
The study appears in Nature Ecology & Evolution with a 2026 publication date. Its DOI is 10.1038/s41559-026-03170-7.
via Phys.org Biology (Source)
More from Priya Raman
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Senior reporter covering industry trends and analytics at SciBeat.
207 articles
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