Conclusions
Our novel approach to molecular identification of bee pollen allowed us to determine the relative abundance of different pollens from mixed samples taken from foraging bees, which is critically important for more precise estimates of pollen use networks (Bell et al. 2017). Our method allowed us to understand ecologically relevant and nuanced characteristics of plant-pollinator interactions, such as how many species of Clarkia bees were interacting with in a given foraging bout, and to what extent (Roslin et al. 2019). This, in turn, revealed how Clarkia interacted via their pollinators, and provided insights into more general patterns of species interactions. As the theories of plant species interactions continue to incorporate mutualistic, complex community dynamics (Morales-Castilla et al. 2015; Vázquez et al. 2015), we believe these kinds of molecular approaches can expand the broader toolkit of community ecologists and facilitate a more robust understanding of species interactions.