Pollination and gene flow in shade coffee farms

摘要

Coffee crops cover over 11 million hectares of land in some of the world's most biodiverse tropical regions. Previous research has shown that "shade-grown" coffee, cultivated under tree canopy, can provide habitat for some native animals, but researchers were unsure of the crop's effects on native pollinators such as bees. To examine the role of native bees as vectors of gene flow across shade-grown coffee farms, Shalene Jha and Christopher Dick (pp. 13760-13764) combined field experiments with seed parentage analysis of Miconia affinis, a tree that releases pollen only in response to buzzing from native bees.