What most of America doesn't know - every single time you bite into a tomato, you're tasting the work of a pollinator that ISN'T a honeybee. In fact, honeybees are about as useful for tomato pollination as I am at parallel parking."

The fun podcast revealing secret pollinator heroes who are really feeding America. Spoiler: It's not honeybees - but we do love honey!

www.secretpollinators.com

KEY SOURCES

Buzz pollination mechanics

• De Luca, P. A., & Vallejo-Marín, M. (2013). What's the buzz about? The ecology and evolutionary significance of buzz-pollination. Current Opinion in Plant Biology, 16(4), 429–435. DOI: 10.1016/j.pbi.2013.05.002
• Vallejo-Marín, M. (2019). Buzz pollination: studying bee vibrations on flowers. New Phytologist, 224(3), 1068–1074. DOI: 10.1111/nph.15666
• Vallejo-Marín, M. (2022). How and why do bees buzz? Implications for buzz pollination. Journal of Experimental Botany, 73(4), 1080–1092.
• Arroyo-Correa, B., Beattie, C. E., & Vallejo-Marín, M. (2019). Bee and floral traits affect the characteristics of the vibrations experienced by flowers during buzz pollination. Journal of Experimental Biology, 222: jeb198176.
• King, M. J., & Buchmann, S. L. (2003). Floral sonication by bees: mesosomal vibration by Bombus and Xylocopa, but not Apis, ejects pollen from poricidal anthers. Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society, 76(2), 295–305.
• Rosi-Denadai, C. A., et al. (2020). Buzz-pollination in Neotropical bees: genus-dependent frequencies and lack of optimal frequency for pollen release. Insect Science, 27(1), 133–142.

Tomato pollination and yield

• Cooley, H., & Vallejo-Marín, M. (2021). Buzz-pollinated crops: a global review and meta-analysis of the effects of supplemental bee pollination in tomato. Journal of Economic Entomology, 114(2), 505–519. DOI: 10.1093/jee/toab009 — meta-analysis of 71 experiments; supplemental buzz pollination increased tomato fruit weight by about 65% over no-pollination controls, and open pollination including buzz-capable bees by about 85%.
• Ohio State University Extension, ENT-0092, Bumble Bee Pollination in Tomato Greenhouses. ohioline.osu.edu — honey bees do not perform buzz pollination; five commonly reared Bombus species worldwide, with B. impatiens most widely used in North America.
• Banda, H. J., & Paxton, R. J. (1991). Pollination of greenhouse tomatoes by bees. Acta Horticulturae, 228, 194–198.
• Velthuis, H. H. W., & van Doorn, A. (2006). A century of advances in bumblebee domestication and the economic and environmental aspects of its commercialization for pollination. Apidologie, 37(4), 421–451.

Blueberries and other buzz-pollinated crops

• Javorek, S. K., Mackenzie, K. E., & Vander Kloet, S. P. (2002). Comparative pollination effectiveness among bees on lowbush blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium). Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 95(3), 345–351.
• Isaacs, R., & Kirk, A. K. (2010). Pollination services provided to small and large highbush blueberry fields by wild and managed bees. Journal of Applied Ecology, 47(4), 841–849.

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