Pollination in a new climate: Evolutionary simulation of bee and flower interactions for predicting impacts of climate change on pollination.

Agent-based simulations enable time- and cost-effective evaluations of complex interactions between different real-world entities. Recent investigations on pollinator-plant interactions show that the learnt flower preferences of important pollinators like bees is dependent upon both flower temperature, and regional ambient temperatures. This shows that local and global changes in climatic conditions may directly influence how certain plants are pollinated. This project will produce computer simulations to reveal how climate change may directly influence flower evolution in the future, and how the management of environmentally and economically important plants can be modelled to inform reliable decision making about this important resource.