Jeff Ollerton

Jeff Ollerton BSc (Hons), PhD, FHEA (born 11th February 1965) is Professor of Biodiversity at the University of Northampton and has held visiting researcher positions at the University of Campinas in Brazil and the University of New South Wales in Australia. His research specialism is the ecology, evolution and conservation of plant-pollinator interactions. Ollerton is the author of Pollinators & Pollination: Nature and Society (Pelagic Press 2020)Ollerton, J. (2021) Pollinators & Pollination: Nature and Society. Pelagic Publishing, Exeter, UK, co-editor (with Nick Waser) of Plant-Pollinator Interactions: from Specialization to Generalization (University of Chicago Press 2006)Waser, N.M. & Ollerton, J. [eds.] (2006) Plant-Pollinator Interactions: from Specialization to Generalization. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, USA and has written more than 120 research papers and popular articles. He is also a published poet with contributions to the Dark Mountain Project and other publications.
==Early life and education==
Ollerton was born in Southwick, Sunderland into a family that were largely coal miners on his father’s side and shipyard workers on his mother’s. He attended High Southwick Primary School and Hylton Redhouse Comprehensive School. His earliest exposure to natural history was on grasslands that had colonised slum-clearance sites and post-industrial brownfield and Magnesian Limestone grasslands along the River Wear valleyOllerton, J. (2021) Pollinators & Pollination: Nature and Society. Pelagic Publishing,Exeter, UK. 
He studied for a BSc (Hons) degree in Environmental Biology at Oxford Polytechnic (now Oxford Brookes University) and remained there to complete a PhD entitled “Ecology of flowering and fruiting in Lotus corniculatus L.” His supervisors were Dr Andrew Lack and Dr Denis Owen, and his contemporaries during his PhD research included Prof. Tim Shreeve, Prof. Stewart Thompson and Prof. Dave Goulson.
==Career==
Following completion of his PhD Ollerton spent six months in Australia as a visiting postdoctoral researcher based at Macquarie University, studying the pollination ecology of Australian PiperaceaeOllerton, J. (1996) Interactions between gall midges (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) and inflorescences of Piper novae-hollandiae (Piperaceae) in Australia. The Entomologist 115:181-184. Returning to Britain he worked as a part-time lecturer at Oxford Brookes University before moving in 1995 to the University of Northampton (then Nene College of Higher Education) as lecturer in ecology. Ollerton remained at Northampton until October 2020 when he stepped down from his professorship to work as an independent science consultant and writer; he retains a Visiting Professorship at Northampton.
==Research==
Ollerton’s research has focused on the relationships between flowering plants and the pollinators that ensure their reproduction. His work is particularly noted for challenging long-held views about the degree of specialisation within these interactions Waser, N.M., Chittka, L., Price, M.V., Williams, N. & Ollerton, J. (1996) Generalization in
pollination systems, and why it matters. Ecology 77: 1043-1060Ollerton, J. (1996) Reconciling ecological processes with phylogenetic patterns: the apparent paradox of plant-pollinator systems. Journal of Ecology 84: 767-769Ollerton, J., Killick, A., Lamborn, E., Watts, S. & Whiston, M. (2007) Multiple meanings and modes: on the many ways to be a generalist flower. Taxon 56: 717-728 and the implications for the ecological stability of plant-pollinator assemblages Biella P., Akter A., Ollerton J., Tarrant S., Janeček Š., Jersáková J. & Klecka J. (2019) Experimental loss of generalist plants reveals alterations in plant-pollinator interactions and a constrained flexibility of foraging. Scientific Reports 9: 1-13Biella, P., Akter, A., Ollerton, J., Nielsen, A. & Klecka, J. (2020) An empirical attack tolerance test alters the structure and species richness of plant-pollinator networks. Functional Ecology (in press), the level of specialisation in tropical communities Ollerton, J. & Cranmer, L. (2002) Latitudinal trends in plant-pollinator interactions: are tropical plants more specialised? Oikos 98: 340-350Moles, A. & Ollerton, J. (2016) Is the notion that species interactions are stronger and more specialized in the tropics a zombie idea? Biotropica 48: 141–145 and the evolution of pollination syndromes Ollerton, J., Alarcón, R., Waser, N.M., Price, M.V., Watts, S., Cranmer, L., Hingston, A. Peter, C.I. & Rotenberry, J. (2009) A global test of the pollination syndrome hypothesis. Annals of Botany 103: 1471-1480Ollerton, J. Waser, N.M., Rodrigo Rech, A. & Price, M.V. (2015) Using the literature to test pollination syndromes — some methodological cautions. Journal of Pollination Ecology
16: 119-125. A particular focus of his work has been the plant family ApocynaceaeOllerton, J. (2021) Pollinators & Pollination: Nature and Society. Pelagic Publishing,
Exeter, UKOllerton, J. (1986) Adaptation to arid environments in the Asclepiadaceae. British Cactus and Succulent Journal 4: 94-98Ollerton, J. & Liede, S. (1997) Pollination systems in the Asclepiadaceae: a survey and preliminary analysis. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 62: 593-610Ollerton J., Johnson S. D., Cranmer, L. & Kellie, S. (2003) The pollination ecology of an assemblage of grassland asclepiads in South Africa. Annals of Botany 92: 807-834Ollerton, J., Masinde, S., Meve, U., Picker, M. & Whittington, A. (2009) Fly pollination in Ceropegia (Apocynaceae: Asclepiadoideae): Biogeographic and phylogenetic perspectives.
Annals of Botany 103: 1501-1514Ollerton, J., Dötterl, S., Ghorpadé, K., Heiduk, A., Liede-Schumann, S., Masinde, S.,
Meve, U., Peter, C.I., Prieto-Benítez, S., Punekar, S., Thulin, M., Whittington, A. (2017)
Diversity of Diptera families that pollinate Ceropegia (Apocynaceae) trap flowers: an update
in light of new data and phylogenetic analyses. Flora 234: 233-244Ollerton, J., Liede-Schumann, S., Endress, M E., Meve, U…. et al. [75 authors in all]
(2019) The diversity and evolution of pollination systems in large plant clades: Apocynaceae
as a case study. Annals of Botany 123: 311-325Xiong, W., Ollerton, J., Liede-Schumann, S., Zhao, W., Jiang, Q., Sun, H. Liao, W. &
You, W. (2020) Specialized cockroach pollination in the rare and endangered plant
Vincetoxicum hainanense (Apocynaceae, Asclepiadoideae) in China. American Journal of
Botany (in press).
Ollerton’s work has also dealt with the conservation of pollinators. In 2014 the journal Science published the first analysis of extinction rates in British pollinator bees and wasps, which showed that, contrary to previous assumptions, the main period of decline in British pollinators began following the First World War rather than the Second World WarOllerton, J., Erenler, H., Edwards, M. & Crockett, R. (2014) Extinctions of aculeate pollinators in Britain and the role of large-scale agricultural changes. Science 346: 1360-1362.
A paper published in 2011 in the journal Oikos emphasised the huge importance of pollinators and their pollination services to nature by being the first to calculate that an estimated 87.5% of the c. 352,000 species of flowering plants are pollinated by animalsOllerton, J., Tarrant, S. & Winfree, R. (2011) How many flowering plants are pollinated by animals? Oikos 120: 321–326. This publication was the “Editor’s Choice” March 2011 Editor’s Choice: To bee…in the month of publication and the paper has subsequently been cited >1900 times including in high-profile international reports such as the IPBES Assessment Report on Pollinators, Pollination and Food ProductionIPBES Assessment Report on Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production https://ipbes.net/assessment-reports/pollinators.
Field work to support his research in Brazil, Guyana, Venezuela, Gabon, Namibia, Tanzania, South Africa, Tenerife, Nepal, and Australia, as well as the UKOllerton, J. (2021) Pollinators & Pollination: Nature and Society. Pelagic Publishing, Exeter, UK.
==Science advisory work==
Ollerton is in demand as a science advisor to media, governments and businesses. In 2010
and 2011 he was science advisor and on-screen expert in the BBC three-part series Bees,
Butterflies and Blooms with Sarah Raven broadcast in 2012Bees, Butterflies and Blooms
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4594432/?ref_=nm_flmg_slf_2. He was also a credited
science advisor to the 2011 feature length documentary Disneynature: Wings of Life
(Cinesite and the Walt Disney Studios) directed by Louie SchwartzbergDisneynature: Wings of Life https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1222816/?ref_=nm_knf_t1. In addition he
has worked with BBC Gardeners’ World presented Carol Klein on a Gardeners’ World -
Science in the Garden special edition (2010) and the BBC series Plant Odyssey (2015). In
2015 he advised on the sections about pollinators in Tony Juniper’s book What Nature Does For Britainhttps://www.tonyjuniper.com/content/what-nature-does-britain.
==In the media==
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== References ==
==External links==
* 
* Jeff Ollerton‬ - ‪Google Scholar‬
* Jeff Ollerton | University of Northampton
* Biohabitats » Expert Q&A: Jeff Ollerton
* Jeff Ollerton on linkedin
* Jeff Ollerton - Pollination - Pelagic Publishing
* Dr. Jeff Ollerton - University of Guelph
Category:1965 births
Category:English academics
Category:Bachelor's degrees
Category:Doctoral degrees
Category:Alumni of Oxford Brookes University
Category:Environmental science