new bee/pollen dataset

[seltmann]

A new dataset about bees and pollen hosts is here: https://figshare.com/s/76b80dd1fbe365e9fc5b

From paper published here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12862-023-02175-1#availability-of-data-and-materials

Interestingly, this is not visitation data but very specialised interaction of carrying pollen of, or found in nest of.

[jhpoelen]

@seltmann thanks for sharing the pollen - bee dataset. Just had a peek at the dataset, and found that they used the matrix form instead of preferred edge list form.

Their format (roughly)

plant pollen name	bee name 1	bee name 2	bee name 3
Plantus domesticus	Apis	Buzzis	...
...	...	...	....

and the preferred format is:

sourceTaxon	interactionType	targetTaxon
Plantus domesticus	foundOn	Apis
Plantus domesticus	foundOn	Buzzis
...	...	...

any chance we can convince the authors to change their format?

Or should we venture to make Elton understand a matrix format . . . even through the format is not easy to extend and process, the interaction matrix does appear to be a popular way to express interactions.

@seltmann curious to hear your thoughts