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Plant–pollinator interactions are essential for maintaining biodiversity and supporting food production, yet inferences drawn from network syntheses may be shaped by where interaction data are generated and which datasets are most reused. Here, we quantify the global distribution of published plant–pollinator networks, assess how publication rates vary across continents after accounting for socioeconomic, geographic, and ecological predictors, and evaluate whether network reuse is driven primarily by time since publication and/or by continent‐specific reuse trajectories. We systematically screened 3390 studies and assembled 721 plant–pollinator networks published between 1923 and 2024. Although networks were available from 58 countries, nearly half originated from just six – Brazil, the US, Spain, Germany, the UK, and Argentina – highlighting strong concentration in data generation. Across countries, publication rates increased with national research investment, country area, and bee species richness. After accounting for these predictors, publication rates in South America, Africa, and Oceania were comparable to those in North America, whereas Europe remained underrepresented relative to most other continents, and Asia showed persistently low representation. Network reuse increased with time since publication but varied among continents: South American networks exhibited higher reuse after roughly a decade since publication than networks from North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania (and marginally more than Africa), while reuse accumulated more rapidly through time for networks from Europe, Africa, and Asia than for networks from North America. Together, these results show that plant–pollinator network knowledge is shaped by coupled biases in both data sampling and reuse, underscoring the need for targeted sampling, improved data mobilization and discoverability, and more equitable collaborations to broaden the geographic basis of global network synthesis.
Brito et al. (Wed,) studied this question.