TY - JOUR AU - Broadbent, Arthur AU - Bourke, Andrew PY - 2012/05/30 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - The bumblebee Bombus hortorum is the main pollinating visitor to Digitalis purpurea (Common Foxglove) in a U.K. population JF - Journal of Pollination Ecology JA - J Poll Ecol VL - 8 IS - 0 SE - Short Communications DO - 10.26786/1920-7603(2012)10 UR - https://pollinationecology.org/index.php/jpe/article/view/149 SP - 48-51 AB - Specialization in plant-pollinator systems represents an important issue for both the ecological understanding and conservation of these systems. We investigated the extent to which the bumblebee <em>Bombus hortorum </em>(Linnaeus) is the main potential pollinator of Common Foxglove, <em>Digitalis purpurea </em>L. Twenty <em>D. purpurea </em>patches were selected in North Yorkshire, U.K., ten each in woodland and garden or park habitat. All insects visiting <em>D. purpurea </em>within the patches were recorded over seventy 30-min bouts. The relative frequency of insect visitors to other flowering plant species within 15 m of each patch was also determined. <em>B. hortorum </em>and <em>B. pascuorum</em> were the two most frequent visitors to <em>D. purpurea</em>, accounting for 82 - 92% and 3 -17%, respectively, of all insect visits (<em>n</em> = 1682), depending on habitat. <em>B. hortorum</em> showed a significant preference for visiting <em>D. purpurea</em> relative to its frequency of visits to other available plant species. The relationship of <em>D. purpurea</em> with <em>B. hortorum</em>, which pollinates several plant species with long corollas, therefore represents a potential case of asymmetric specialization, albeit one that may vary spatially. Because <em>D. purpurea</em> reproduction appears dependent on insect pollination, <em>B. hortorum</em> and <em>B. pascuorum</em> may help underpin the viability of <em>D. purpurea</em> populations. ER -