The use of digital video recorders in pollination biology

Abstract

1. Digital video recording (DVR) devices, such as the GoPro Hero, have the potential to greatly benefit pollination ecology, but the advantages of digitally recording pollinator activity over direct human observation have not been formally assessed.2. Two plant taxa, Lavandula angustifolia and Canna 'sp.', with differing floral morphology, were used to compare the value of DVR and direct observations in estimating honeybee (Apis mellifera) visitation, flower density and number of flowers visited per foraging bout.3. The two methods yielded identical results when observing the structurally simple L. angustifolia at both high (10.54 ± 0.52 per plant) and low honeybee density (2.24 ± 0.20 per plant). However, DVR underestimated the number of flowers scored in the field of view (28.7 ± 1.8 direct vs. 22.7 ± 0.9 DVR), the number of honeybees observed (5.3 ± 0.8 direct vs. 3.7 ± 0.7 DVR) and the number of flowers visited during foraging bouts (8.3 ± 1.2 direct vs. 5.5 ± 1.0 DVR) on the more complex Canna 'sp.' 4. It is concluded that portable weatherproof DVR devices such as the GoPro Hero are valuable tools for pollination biologists, allowing a single researcher to make simultaneous observations of multiple plants in one or more sites, whilst also allowing the footage to be reviewed. However, DVR devices are limited by their depth and field of view when target plants are large or structurally complex.

Effectiveness of camera traps for quantifying daytime and nighttime visitation by vertebrate pollinators

“…Here, efficient tools to manage camera trap data, such automated image recognition software, are critical (e.g., Jumeau et al., ; Niedballa, Sollmann, Courtiol, & Wilting, ; Tack et al., ), and citizen science can assist (e.g., McShea, Forrester, Costello, He, & Kays, ; https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/birgus2/western-shield-camera-watch/classify). Increasingly sophisticated digital video recording devices (e.g., GoPro, https://gopro.com) offer another alternative and/or complementary option to still cameras that have enormous potential for, and are beginning to be applied to, pollination biology studies, even with invertebrates (e.g., Gilpin, Denham, & Ayre, ).…”

“…One option for collecting visitation data that does not rely on the ability of the camera to detect movement is to utilize cameras with time-lapse capacity, in a similar way to phenocam networks that are monitoring vegetation status and environmental changes (Brown et al, 2016;https://phenocam.org.au for, and are beginning to be applied to, pollination biology studies, even with invertebrates (e.g., Gilpin, Denham, & Ayre, 2017).…”

Studying plant–pollinator interactions in a changing climate: A review of approaches

“…The assessment of the pollen on the captured pollinators, where pollen can be identified via comparison to a reference collection or via DNA barcoding ( Bell et al, 2017 ), is one complementary approach. The use of digital video recorders could also supplement the observations ( Gilpin et al, 2017 ).…”

Manual Sampling and Video Observations: An Integrated Approach to Studying Flower-Visiting Arthropods in High-Mountain Environments

“…Flower-visiting arthropods have traditionally been monitored by direct observations and manual sampling, where timed observations have been proposed and used as a standard, repeatable, and effective method [ 38 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 ]. Nonetheless, an emerging technique is video observation, which has been employed with various goals and approaches to study the flower-visiting arthropod communities [ 39 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 ]. Although the arthropods collected by manual sampling can be taxonomically identified on a fine scale and in some cases may offer the possibility to perform investigations on the nature of their interactions with the focal plant (e.g., assessing the presence of pollen on sampled specimens), arthropod behavior and activity on plants cannot be observed or described in detail using this method.…”