DOI: 10.5061/dryad.41m3s
title: Data from: Diel activity, frequency and visit duration of pollinators in focal plants: in situ automatic camera monitoring and data processing

description: Data collection on interactions between organisms and their environment
 has traditionally been conducted by on-site human observations, a
 time-consuming enterprise that could explain the shortage of
 around-the-clock observations of free-ranging wild animals. In this paper,
 I outline a time-efficient procedure to collect data on flower-visiting
 animals. The objectives were, first, to model diel activity rhythms by
 using cosine-based mixed-effects regression models (cosinor method) on
 data from an established automatic video monitoring system and, secondly,
 to test the use of a cheap off-the-shelf digital camera modified for
 automated monitoring of flower visitors. Two different model systems were
 studied: foraging bumblebees visiting focal white clovers, monitored
 around-the-clock (193 h) to model diel activity; and honeybees visiting
 thistles, monitored over a shorter period (5 h) to test the applicability
 and reliability of a new method for monitoring pollinators. The data were
 automatically entered and processed using R-scripts after manual filtering
 of the images, obviating the need for manual data entry prior to analysis.
 For diel activity in bumblebees, the model that gave the best fit included
 the 24-h fundamental period and one harmonic, a 12-h period to modulate
 the signal, together with temperature. The bumblebees were exclusive
 diurnal, with activity starting about 5 h after sunrise, peaking sharply
 in the afternoon and ending about 1 h before sunset. In addition to time
 of day, activity also increased with temperature. The off-the-shelf
 digital camera, Canon PowerShot®, with motion detection script, was
 triggered by every flower-visiting honeybee. In addition to recorded
 visitor frequency and visitor duration, it enabled high-resolution images,
 which could be important for species identification. Automatic camera
 recording is advantageous for close-up monitoring, compared with
 continuous video recording, because the latter demands more time and
 effort in reviewing the material. It could be used to study a range of
 different species such as pollinators, on-plant behaviour of herbivorous
 animals, cavity dwellers or cavity breeders. Moreover, the procedures for
 automatic data entry, data processing and statistical analysis for
 modelling diel activity rhythms could have great relevance for researchers
 using other types of camera monitoring systems operating 24 h per day.
description: Monitoring
 periodData frame with start
 and stop for each monitoring sessionmonitoring.log.csvTemperature dataTemperature log during the monitoring periodtemp.txtBumblebee visitsData frame with number of bumblebee visits per monitored hour-blocktotal.csvBumblebee visits with temperature dataData frame with no. bumblebee visits & temperature (cosinor analysis)visits.csvHoneybee images (EXIF data)Data frame with metadata from images with honeybees (EXIF data)time_data.csvReadMe filePlease review this file for important information of the data package as a whole, with explanation of each individual data file.