Ruby E. Stephens
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rubyecology.bsky.social
Ruby E. Stephens
@rubyecology.bsky.social
1.7K followers 1.2K following 32 posts
Australian plant and pollination ecologist, working to make the world greener and kinder. Postdoc at UNSW Sydney thinking about the renewable energy transition. Keen reader, bushwalker, bee admirer

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rubyecology.bsky.social
Linda Riquelme highlighted that pollination can be key to plant translocation success.

She investigated pollination in three critically endangered shrub species, all of which depend on pollinators to set seed. Pollinators = 🐝 (S. aca), 🐦🐿️ (G. mic) and 🪲🪰🦋 (S. fur)

#ESAus2024 🌏🧪
Photo of a slide showing a map of western Victoria, with photos of three rare plant species and their approximate distributions in Grampians NP and Little Desert NP. The species, all shrubs, are Spyridium furculentum, Sphaerolobium acanthos and Grevillea microstegia Photo of a slide entitled "Grevillea microstegia", with images of the many vertebrate pollinators found visiting this plant's flowers, including the eastern spinebill (55% of visits), new holland honeyeater (17%), pygmy possum (image in black-and-white as taken at night, 15% of visits), yellow-faced honeyeater (6%), brown thornbill (4%), silvereye (1%)
December 16, 2024 at 5:40 AM
rubyecology.bsky.social
Allison Menzies @invertally.bsky.social spent 8 weeks sampling pollination networks in a Victorian grassland.
Though field conditions weren't great (lots of rain) she still found a decent network with lots of connectance, few honey bees and a lot more flies visiting than pollinating

#ESAus2024 🌏🧪
A photo of a slide entitled "Visitors -> Pollinators", with bullet points that state "pollen library from study plants", "matched to pollen on insects (539 identifications)", "created pollen transport networks". Images on the right hand side of the slide show close up photos of a pinned Flower Wasp specimen (Austroscolia sp.) bearing a mix of pollen grains. Other images show pollen grains from 5 native and 1 non-native plant species, with the clarification that the non-native species (Hypochaeris sp.) was not included in network analyses A slide showing a bipartite pollination network, with insect pollinator morphospecies on the top and flowering plant species on the bottom. Text below the network states that 545 interactions were detected overall, with 237 individuals from 54 morphospecies of insects in 7 orders (and 5 flowering plant species), with high connectedness in the network
December 16, 2024 at 4:48 AM
rubyecology.bsky.social
Eamonn Culhane investigated pollination in 4 species of arid Pterostylis orchids (rustyhoods).

Despite sharing a widespread fungus gnat pollinator, these sexually deceptive orchids rarely set seed - perhaps because they rarely succeed at capturing their amorous gnat visitors

#ESAus2024 🌏🧪
Photo of a slide showing a Xenoplatyura conformis fungus gnat attempting to mate with the labellum of a 'rustyhood' Pterostylis orchid. For pollination to be successful the labellum should trigger and capture the fungus gnat Photo of a slide with the title "Pollinator behaviour", and bullet points "high rate of attempted mating" and "low capture rate". A graph shows that, for four species of Pterostylis orchid, more fungus gnat pollinators alighted on the flower and attempted mating than triggered the labellum (necessary for pollination to occur). An image on the left shows one species of Pterostylis with a visiting fungus gnat
December 16, 2024 at 4:17 AM
rubyecology.bsky.social
Okay some belated highlights from pollination talks at #ESAus2024 :

Amanda Hewes ran behavioural experiments to test trait-matching between Australian honeyeaters and Spotted Fuschia-bush. Results? A bit mixed - some matching between bill and corolla length for pollen deposition but not removal
🧪🌏
A slide showing bright pink flowers of Eremophila maculata with flower parts labelled with botanical terms A slide posing the question, "Does trait matching determine feeding and pollen transfer efficiency in honeyeater-plant interactions?" and answering this question with "Somewhat... Honeyeater species differ in feeding and pollen transfer efficiency at Eremophila maculata flowers. Trait matching: pollen removal (cross); pollen deposition (tick); feeding efficiency (cross)
December 16, 2024 at 3:30 AM
rubyecology.bsky.social
Fabulous address by @ecolsocaus.bsky.social Gold Medal winner Alan Anderson at #ESAus2024 on ant biodiversity in Australian savannahs - which may be much higher than pictured in this map due to a large number of undescribed Australian ant species!
Map of ant richness globally from Kass et al. (2022) Science. Northern Australia doesn't look very species rich but this may be because of a large number of undescribed species
December 12, 2024 at 5:58 AM
rubyecology.bsky.social
Excited for a room full of (Australian) pollination talks! #ESAus2024
December 12, 2024 at 2:31 AM
rubyecology.bsky.social
Delightful to see an orchid nerd butcher an orchid- for science!
I loved Andrew Bird's method for figuring out what part of the Caladenia flower smells most attractive to pollinators #ESAus2024
December 10, 2024 at 11:03 AM
rubyecology.bsky.social
Hard to go outside without earplugs right now thanks to these cutie cicadas and their many cousins #WildOz
Floury baker cicada conveniently posing beside a ruler for scale (may have been set up)
November 25, 2024 at 2:14 AM
rubyecology.bsky.social
I thought this bird box was not well-designed for wildlife - brush-tailed possum clearly disagrees #WildOz
Brush-tailed possum hiding in a damp wooden bird box hanging from a tree
November 18, 2024 at 11:50 PM
rubyecology.bsky.social
Halloween decorations 🎃 My family insist that vampire bees are not a thing, but I tell them that I have a PhD in pollination now so I'm pretty sure I know better... 👻
October 31, 2024 at 3:47 AM
rubyecology.bsky.social
Show me your pet and what they're named after
Sappho the dog Sappho the poet
October 26, 2024 at 1:52 AM
rubyecology.bsky.social
Hello Bluesky!
I have missed having a place to post cute photos of flowers and bees and chat ecology/evolution et al.
Here is one of our neighbours who we've dubbed 'Parrots of Troy'
Bright red king parrot looking curiously at the camera
October 26, 2024 at 1:51 AM