Artificial flowers as a tool for investigating multimodal flower choice in wild insects

# Artificial flowers as a tool for investigating multimodal flower choice in wild insects [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.jsxksn0h5](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.jsxksn0h5) This dataset includes: * A CSV containing data on visitation rates to artificial flowers "artificial\_flower\_data.csv" and corresponding metadata "art\_flowers\_metadata.csv" * A CSV containing data on insect approaches, landing and feeding on artificial flowers "multinom\_visitation.csv" and corresponding metadata "multinom\_visitation\_metadata.csv" * The file "artificial\_flower\_2023\_dryad\_v2" contains an R markdown file with the statistical analyses performed in the manuscript ## Description of the data and file structure Data were collected by observing insect interactions with multiattribute artificial flowers. The "artificial\_flower\_data.csv" contains observations of insects landing and feeding on flowers. Each row is an observation. The following data are included: | variable | description | | -------- | ----------- | | date | date experiment conducted | | pollen | Feedbee substitute present (y/n) | | nectar | n= not present,y= present | | shape | daisy, daisy\_vert, disc, disc\_vert | | colour | yellow, blue | | size | large, small | | linalool | n= not present,y= present | | citral | n= not present,y= present | | site | site id number | | insect\_abundance | number of insects that approached, landed or fed | | species\_richness | total number of spcies that approached, landed fed | | honey\_bee | number of Apis | | tetragonula | Num Tcarb | | no\_hb | Abundance excluding honeybees | | hoverfly | Syrphids | | feed | The number of insects that fed on flowers | | land | The number that landed, but did not feed | | approach | The number of insects that approached, but did not land or feed | | feed\_land | The number of insects that fed and/or landed | | spec\_rich\_land | Number of taxa that landed or fed | | observer | Who recorded info | | treatment\_real | Unique flower identifier | | food\_cat | nn= no pollen, no nectar, ny= no pollen, has nectar, yn =has pollen, no nectar, nn= no pollen, no nectar | | smell\_cat | nn= no odours, yy = linalool and citral, yn= linaloom, no citral, ny = no libalool, has citral | The file "multinom\_visitation.csv" contains data on insect interactions with artificial flowers where the interactions are defined as 'approach', 'land', or 'feed'. It contains the following data: | variable | description | | -------- | ----------- | | date | date experiment conducted | | pollen | Feedbee substitute present (y/n) | | nectar | n= not present,y= present | | shape | daisy, daisy\_vert, disc, disc\_vert | | colour | yellow, blue | | size | large, small | | linalool | n= not present,y= present | | citral | n= not present,y= present | | insect | initial categorisation from datasheets | | response | Described behaviour of the insect toward the flower as either Landing, Feeding or Approach. See manuscript for precise definition | | observer | Initials of the observer (f or k) | | treatmen\_real | Unique flower identifier | | num | ignore-used to make id\_numbers | | id\_num | unique id\_number for each observation; was calculated for an IRT analysis that we ended up not using | | morphoptaxa | morphotaxa | | order | Arthropod order the organism belongs to |