We have a new PrePrint up at the peerJ (note that it is not peer-reviewed yet, but already citable) showing that pollinators increase not only yield, but also the quality of four european crops. While the evidence that pollinators are important for crop production is quite strong now, specially after Klein et al. 2007 review and Garibaldi et al 2013 synthesis, I think our paper still contributes to the field by quantifying the contribution to yield (and quality!) in a experimental way along a landscape gradient. Moreover, I think the introduction and discussion is well crafted and points out some aspects that are difficult to cover in short high impact papers (i.e. like our “Garibaldi” science paper). Which points? You will need to read the paper.

You can see the data were collected in 2005, so it has a long, long story I prefer not to dig in. In any case, it ended up in my table and I experienced the pains (and joys) of working with someone else data. That’s why, after waiting 8 years in a messy excel file, I felt that the data deserved to see the light as fast as possible and I pushed to publish it as a preprint. This is an awesome way to make it public probably ~ 6 months earlier than the final reviewed version. I am also happy to try a new Journal that is doing very nice and innovative things. Taking together this preprint and my F1000Research experience, I really think it makes no sense to hide a paper ready to be read until its final version. This can only slow down science. Read more about preprints here.

PS: Also read Klatt et al 2014 paper on strawberries, which spoiled a bit our findings, but is really good.