Publications

Mentored co-authors: undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs

• Kaminskaia, E, and NE Rafferty. In revision. Topography, microclimate and fine-scale thermal heterogeneity modulate pollinator foraging behavior. Landscape Ecology.

• Hall, ES, MR Kazenel, JE McLaughlin, KW Wright, JA Rudgers, and NE Rafferty. In review. Reduced synchrony between flowering and bee flight periods tracks increasing aridity. Ecosphere.

• de Manincor, N, A Fisogni, O Godoy, NE Rafferty. 2026. Climate warming drives the breakdown of plant-pollinator mutualisms despite phenological synchrony. Global Change Biology 32:e71074. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.71074

• Hall, ES, N de Manincor, A Fisogni, R Hoey-Chamberlain, D Yanega, and NE Rafferty. 2026. Plant-pollinator interaction potential varies with temperature and precipitation in a dryland ecosystem elevational gradient. Journal of Biogeography 53:e70186. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.70186

• Fisogni, A, N de Manincor, E Kaminskaia, and NE Rafferty. 2025. Complexities of phenological shifts for plant-pollinator interactions and ways forward. Integrative and Comparative Biology 65:932-941. https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icaf034

• Sprayberry, JDH, T-L Ashman, J Crall, J Hranitz, M Jankauski, M Lihoreau, S Potdar, NE Rafferty, CC Rittschof, MA-Y Smith, I Valdes, and EL Westerman. 2025. Plant-pollinator interactions in the Anthropocene: why we need a systems approach. Integrative and Comparative Biology 65:991-1006. https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icaf062

• Kaminskaia, E, C Stuligross, and NE Rafferty. 2025. Pollination in a fire-prone world: reduced solar radiation and warming alter plant-pollinator interactions. Functional Ecology 39:2111-2122. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.70082

• Rose-Person, A, LS Santiago, and NE Rafferty. 2025. Drought stress influences foraging preference of a solitary bee on two wildflowers. Annals of Botany 135:153-164. https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcae048

• Rose-Person, A, MJ Spasojevic, C Forrester, WD Bowman, KN Suding, MF Oldfather, and NE Rafferty. 2024. Early snowmelt advances flowering phenology and disrupts the drivers of pollinator visitation in an alpine ecosystem. Alpine Botany 134:141-150. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00035-024-00315-x

• Rafferty, NE, and CT Cosma. 2024. Sustainable nature-based solutions require establishment and maintenance of keystone plant-pollinator interactions. Journal of Ecology 112:2432-2441. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.14353

  • journal cover image (credit: generated using Dall-E 3 AI by Chris Cosma)

• Henn, JJ, KE Anderson, LM Brigham, CP Bueno de Mesquita, CG Collins, SC Elmendorf, MD Green, JD Huxley, NE Rafferty, A Rose-Person, and MJ Spasojevic. 2024. Long-term alpine plant responses to global change drivers depend on functional traits. Ecology Letters 27:e14518. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.14518

• Vilchez-Russell, KA, and NE Rafferty. 2024. Effects of heat shocks, heat waves, and sustained warming on solitary bees. Frontiers in Bee Science 2:1392848. https://doi.org/10.3389/frbee.2024.1392848

• de Manincor, N, A Fisogni, and NE Rafferty. 2023. Warming of experimental plant–pollinator communities advances phenologies, alters traits, reduces interactions and depresses reproduction. Ecology Letters 26:323-334. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.14158

• Keeler, AM, and NE Rafferty. 2022. Legume germination is delayed in dry soils and in sterile soils devoid of microbial mutualists: Species-specific implications for upward range expansions. Ecology and Evolution 12:e9186. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.9186

• Fisogni, A, N de Manincor, CD Bertelsen, and NE Rafferty. 2022. Long-term changes in flowering synchrony reflect climatic changes across an elevational gradient. Ecography 2022:e06050. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.06050

  • journal cover photo (credit: C. David Bertelsen)

  • Editor's choice

• Liang, H, Y-H Zhao, NE Rafferty, Z-X Ren, L Zhong, H-D Li, D-Z Li, and H Wang. 2021. Evolutionary and ecological factors structure a plant-bumblebee network in a biodiversity hotspot, the Himalaya-Hengduan Mountains. Functional Ecology 35:2523-2535. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.13886

• Keeler, AM, A Rose-Person, and NE Rafferty. 2021. From the ground up: building predictions for how climate change will affect belowground mutualisms, floral traits, and bee behavior. Climate Change Ecology 1:100013. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecochg.2021.100013

• Rafferty, NE, JM Diez, and CD Bertelsen. 2020. Changing climate drives divergent and nonlinear shifts in flowering phenology across elevations. Current Biology 30:432-441. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.11.071

  • journal cover photo (credit: C. David Bertelsen)

  • accompanying dispatch "Climate change: flowering time may be shifting in surprising ways" by Janet S. Prevéy

• Rafferty, NE, L Agnew, and PD Nabity. 2019. Parasitism modifies the direct effects of warming on a hemiparasite and its host. PLoS ONE 14:e0224482. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0224482

• Ollerton, J, and 74 others, including NE Rafferty. 2019. The diversity and evolution of pollination in large plant clades: Apocynaceae as a case study. Annals of Botany 123:311-325. https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcy127

• Rafferty, NE. 2017. Effects of global change on insect pollinators: multiple drivers lead to novel communities. Current Opinion in Insect Science 23:22-27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cois.2017.06.009

• Morton, EM, and NE Rafferty. 2017. Plant-pollinator interactions under climate change: the use of spatial and temporal transplants. Applications in Plant Sciences 5:1600133. https://doi.org/10.3732/apps.1600133

• Rafferty, NE, and PD Nabity. 2017. A global test for phylogenetic signal in shifts in flowering time under climate change. Journal of Ecology 105:627-633. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.12701

  • journal cover photo

  • Editor's choice

• de Keyzer, CW, NE Rafferty, DW Inouye, and JD Thomson. 2017. Confounding effects of spatial variation on shifts in phenology. Global Change Biology 23:1783-1791. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13472

• de Keyzer, CW, SR Colla, CF Kent, NE Rafferty, LL Richardson, and JD Thomson. 2016. Delving deeper: questioning the decline of long-tongued bumble bees, long-tubed flowers and their mutualisms with climate change. Journal of Pollination Ecology 18:36-42. https://doi.org/10.26786/1920-7603(2016)15

• Rafferty, NE, CD Bertelsen, and JL Bronstein. 2016. Later flowering is associated with a compressed flowering season and reduced reproductive output in an early season floral resource. Oikos 125:821-828. https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.02573

• Rafferty, NE, PJ CaraDonna, and JL Bronstein. 2015. Phenological shifts and the fate of mutualisms. Oikos 124:14-21. https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.01523

  • journal cover photo (credit: David W. Inouye)

  • recommended by Faculty of 1000

• Rafferty, NE. 2013. "Pollination Ecology." For Oxford Bibliographies in Ecology. Ed. DJ Gibson. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780199830060-0121

• Rafferty, NE, and AR Ives. 2013. Phylogenetic trait-based analyses of ecological networks. Ecology 94:2321-2333. https://doi.org/10.1890/12-1948.1

• Rafferty, NE, and NM Waser. 2013. Book review: Evolution of Plant-Pollinator Relationships, Ed. S Patiny. Quarterly Review of Biology 88:238-239. https://doi.org/10.1086/671508

• Rafferty, NE, PJ CaraDonna, LA Burkle, AM Iler, and JL Bronstein. 2013. Phenological overlap of interacting species in a changing climate: an assessment of available approaches. Ecology and Evolution 3:3183-3193. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.668

• Scaven, VL, and NE Rafferty. 2013. Physiological effects of climate warming on flowering plants and insect pollinators and potential consequences for their interactions. Current Zoology 59:418-426. https://doi.org/10.1093/czoolo/59.3.418

• Gilman, RT, NS Fabina, KC Abbott, and NE Rafferty. 2012. Evolution of plant-pollinator mutualisms in response to climate change. Evolutionary Applications 5:2-16. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-4571.2011.00202.x

  • journal cover photo

  • popular press by Science Daily and Treehugger

• Rafferty, NE, and AR Ives. 2012. Pollinator effectiveness varies with experimental shifts in flowering time. Ecology 93:803-814. https://doi.org/10.1890/11-0967.1

  • featured on journal cover

• Rafferty, NE, and AR Ives. 2011. Effects of experimental shifts in flowering phenology on plant-pollinator interactions. Ecology Letters 14:69-74. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2010.01557.x

  • journal cover photo

• Rafferty, NE, and JW Boughman. 2006. Olfactory mate recognition in a sympatric species pair of three-spined sticklebacks. Behavioral Ecology 17:965-970. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arl03

• Rafferty, NE, PD Boersma, and GA Rebstock. 2005. Intraclutch egg-size variation in Magellanic Penguins. Condor 107:921-926. https://doi.org/10.1650/7688.1