Pol‐NIC: An open database on pollen nutrients, imaging, and contaminants

Pollen provides a wealth of nutrients crucial to pollinators, including proteins, lipids, minerals, essential amino acids and fatty acids, vitamins, as well as flavonoids and phenols. However, pollen can be contaminated by some pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and heavy metals. There is an increasing need to characterize pollinator nutritional landscapes to implement efficient conservation measures and halt pollinator decline. However, the nutritional content of pollen is absent from most datasets on floral resources and floral traits, limiting our ability to characterize essential nutrients available in the landscape for pollinators. We reviewed the literature and provide a primary dataset on pollen nutrients of 283 plant species from 54 families. While data on proteins, lipids, and amino acids (with the exception of tryptophan) were available in the literature, information on other nutrients was scarce (e.g., for minerals, vitamins, fatty acids). Moreover, extensively characterized pollen belonged to food‐producing plants, with important gaps for other flowering plants. To fill these gaps, we conducted a multidimensional assessment of 20 pollen samples from cultivated and wild plants by HPLC and mass‐spectrometry (including 32 nutrients, 100 contaminants, and pollen imaging). We provide an open and dynamic database with results from this assessment—composed of nutrient and contaminant datasets and an imaging database—which will be updated over time with new species and locations. Practical implications: this database is anticipated to be used to (1) characterize pollinator nutritional landscape and (2) identify plants with nutritional value for pollinators and make recommendations for conservation management.