ArticleScientific reports2020
Insect pollination: an ecological process involved in the assembly of the seed microbiota.
Article in Scientific reports, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 56 citations in OpenAlex.
- Meta-analysis of sources and transmission pathways of Apis mellifera (Hymenoptera: Apidae) microbiota based on 16S sequencing data.Journal of insect science (Online) · 2025Pooled it
- Diversity and sources of floral microbial communities.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2026Review
- Host Species Mediate Distinct Seed Microbiome Responses to Restoration.Microbial ecology · 2026Article
- Multiple origins of the apple seed microbiome: disentangling sexual and asexual transmission pathways.Environmental microbiome · 2026Article
- The seed microbiota from an application perspective: an underexplored frontier in plant-microbe interactions.Crop health · 2025Review
- The Dynamic Changes ofPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- The seeds of Plantago lanceolata comprise a stable core microbiome along a plant richness gradient.Environmental microbiome · 2024Article
- Is the plant microbiome transmitted from pollen to seeds?Frontiers in microbiology · 2024Article
- Assembly and Function of Seed Endophytes in Response to Environmental Stress.Journal of microbiology and biotechnology · 2023Review
- Interspecies and temporal dynamics of bacterial and fungal microbiomes of pistil stigmas in flowers in holoparasitic plants of the Orobanche series Alsaticae (Orobanchaceae).Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Honeybees affect floral microbiome composition in a central food source for wild pollinators in boreal ecosystems.Oecologia · 2023Article
- Gut microbial diversity inFrontiers in veterinary science · 2023Article
- Article
- Article
- The Role of Soil Microbial Diversity in the Conservation of Native Seed Bacterial Microbiomes.Microorganisms · 2022Article
- A metacommunity ecology approach to understanding microbial community assembly in developing plant seeds.Frontiers in microbiology · 2022Review
- The effect of plant domestication on host control of the microbiota.Communications biology · 2021Review
- Emerging strategies for precision microbiome management in diverse agroecosystems.Nature plants · 2021Review
- Insights into the early stages of plant-endophytic bacteria interaction.World journal of microbiology & biotechnology · 2021Review
- Spatiotemporal Assembly of Bacterial and Fungal Communities of Seed-Seedling-Adult in Rice.Frontiers in microbiology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The assembly of the seed microbiota involves some early microbial seed colonizers that are transmitted from the maternal plant through the vascular system, while other microbes enter through the stigma. Thus, the seed microbiota consists of microbes not only recruited from the plant vascular tissues, but also from the flower. Flowers are known to be a hub for microbial transmission between plants and insects. This floral-insect exchange opens the possibility for insect-transmitted bacteria to colonize the ovule and, subsequently, the seed to pass then into the next plant generation. In this study, we evaluated the contribution of insect pollination to the seed microbiota through high-throughput sequencing. Oilseed rape (OSR) flowers were exposed to visits and pollination by honey bees (Apis mellifera), red mason bees (Osmia bicornis), hand pollinated or left for autonomous self-pollination (ASP). Sequence analyses revealed that honey bee visitation reduced bacterial richness and diversity in seeds, but increased the variability of seed microbial structure, and introduced bee-associated taxa. In contrast, mason bee pollination had minor effects on the seed microbiota. Our study provides the first evidence that insect pollination is an ecological process involved in the transmission of bacteria from flowers to seeds.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.