POLLEN PRODUCTION AND DISPERSAL
Geos/Anth 481/581

Over-representation: present when plant not, or pollen abundance much greater than plant abundance (in vegetation considered)

Under-representation: absent when plant present, or pollen abundance much less than plant abundance

• Production (High - tend to be over-represented)
  • Pine (Pinus) = 10,000,000,000 grains/yr
    
  • Dock (Rumex) = 400,000,000 grains/yr
    
• Dispersal (Far - tend to be over-represented)
  • mean dispersal distance a kilometers
  • examples: pine, Ephedra 100s of km
• Morphology:
  • dispersed individually rather than in clumps
    • smooth (not spiney, or with threads)
    • not coated with sticky "kit"
    • monads (not tetrads, polyads)
  • high surface-to-volume ratio
    • Pinus saccae
    • Ambrosia cavae

• Production: (Low - tend to be under-represented)
  • Flax 20,000 grains/yr
• dispersal: (Poor - tend to be under-represented)
  • mean dispersal distance a few meters
  • abundant near plant
  • abundant in nest of animal pollinator
• dispersed in clumps to ensure fertilization
  • spines and "viscin threads" promote clumping
  • sticky "pollen kit" causes grains to aggregate
  • tetrads and polyads common

• insect pollinated but produces abundant pollen
  • Basswood Tilia
  • heather Calluna
• dwarf mistletoe (Arceuthobium) low production but,
  • insect pollinated in eastern U.S.
  • wind pollinated in western U.S.
    

• Annual sequence of airborne Pollen Types
  • Reflects both Precipitation and Temperature
    
  • example: Tucson's bi-modal pollen calendar
    
• Inter-annual Variability
  • Climatic or Ecological Differences
    
  • demonstrated by aeroallergy records
    
    Solomon & Hayes 1980
• Geographical Variability:
  • altitudinal
    • Aspen (Populus tremuloides) produces more pollen at low altitudes Albion Mountains, ID
      
  • latitudinal
    
    • Black Spruce (Picea mariana)seldom flowers at its southern range limits
• Useful in detection of season of deposition or season of use (archeology) e.g., Boerhaavia, Kallstroemia (summer).

1. Animal Transport
   
   • Concentration low in most places (low production, poor dispersal), but may be HIGH at plant if no transport has occurred, or in the animal's nest: people, packrats, bees
     • indicates plant nearby
       
     • indicates use of feature
       
   • Animal transport of airborne (anemophilous) pollen types is very hard to detect because those types are abundant in all samples.
     • honey bees known to collect anemophilous pollen types (grass ragweed)
2. Water Transport
   
   • Stream Transport
     • Ann Bonny (1976) Pollen Exclosure Experiment
       80% of pollen in small lake from small stream
       20% airborne
     • Pat Fall (1981) Arroyo samples
       pollen in arroyo sediments is from mountain vegetation
       pollen outside channgl is from lowland vegetation
   • Lake Transport
     • Lake Surface: pine pollen floats, blows to shore and piles up
     • Settling in Water Column: types with low settling velocity are preferentially sediment in littoral area (shallow water next to shore [Davis, 1968])
     • Sediment Focusing: sediment (and pollen) moved to deep parts of lake, beneath wave action
   • Ocean Transport
     
     • Pollen is transported by ocean currents, deposited with silt with sorting: (Muller, 1959; Traverse and Ginsburg, 1966)
     • Gulf of California: pollen from perennial streams is deposited near the mouth of the stream (Cross et al., 1966)
       
3. Wind Transport
   
   • Particularly important in Mountainous regions where pollen from low elevation plants is blown to high elevation and vice versa. (Markgraf, 1980; Solomon and Silkworth, 1986)
     

n = d³Te^-(d/λ) (integral model)
n = Ne^-(d/λ) (linear model)

where

• T = total pollen production at source
  
• N = accumulation rate at source
  
• n = accumulation at distance d
  
• e = root of natural logarithm
  
• d = distance from source
  
• λ = mean dispersal distance (lambda)
  

'N' pollen production at source

ARITHMETIC increase of n with increasing N
one tree to two trees
small forest to big forest
'd' distance from source

EXPONENTIAL increase with decreased d
greatest beyond 2 times λ
'λ' biological characteristics
EXPONENTIAL effect λ = f(G,H,W)
• Settling velocity of pollen Grain 2 - 50 cm/sec
  
  • size, shape, mass
    
• Height of pollen release
  
  • wind speed increases with height
• Speed and turbulence of Wind
  
  • season of pollen release
  • windy environments (ridges vs understory)


Examples: (Wright, 1952)


Tree Species	λ (m)	N (gr cm2day-1)	tree height (m)	Anem./Zoo.
Populus deltoides	2438	4	50	A
Ulmus americana	1433	9	50	Z
Fraxinus americana	54	74	30	A
Pinus edulis	51	49	8	A





Characterization of Pollen Types Based on Transport
Regional:	λ > 1 km
Extra Local:	1km > λ > 100 m
Local:	λ < 100 m



Re-suspension of Pollen

• Fresh pollen blows (is washed) around until it is
  • a. deteriorated
  • b. buried
• Mixing of out-of-season pollen results in a homogeneous pollen rain. (Bright, 1981, O'Rourke, 1986)
  
• Erosion of fossil pollen - 'the older the better'
  
  • Tertiary Sediments (Scott and Srivastava, 1984)
    
  • Glacial Tills (Cushing, 1964)
    

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Andersen, S. T. 1974. Wind conditions and pollen deposition in a mixed deciduous forest. I. Wind conditions and pollen dispersal. Grana 14: 57-63.

Andersen 1974. Wind conditions and pollen deposition in a mixed deciduous forest. II. Seasonal and annual pollen deposition 1967-1972. Grana 14: 64-77

Andersen 1980. Influence of climatic variation on pollen season severity in wind-pollinated trees and herbs. Grana 19: 47-52

Birks, H.J.B. and A.D. Gordon. 1985. Numerical methods in Quaternary pollen analysis. Academic Press, London. 317 p.

Bonny, A.P. 1976. Recruitment of pollen to the seston and sediment of some English Lake District lakes. Jour. Ecol. 64:859-857.

Bright, R.C. 1981. Pollen in high-mountain snow, western United States. Striae: 14: 55-57.

Cross, A.T., G.G. Thompson, and J.B. Zaitzeff. 1966. Source and distribution of palynomorphs in bottom sediments, southern part of Gulf of California. Marine Geology 4: 467-524.

Cruden, R.W. 1977. Pollen-ovule ratios: a conservative indicator of breeding systems in flowering plants. Evolution 31: 32-46.

Cruden, R.W. and Miller-Ward, S. 1981. Pollen-ovule ratio, pollen size and the ratio of stigmatic area to the pollen bearing area of the pollinator: a hypothesis. Evolution 35: 964-974.

Cushing, E.J. 1964. Redeposited pollen in late-Wisconsin pollen spectra from east-central Minnesota. Amer. J. Sci. 262: 1075-1088.

Davis, M.B. 1963. On the theory of pollen analysis. Amer. J. Sci. 261: 897-912.

Davis, M.B. 1968. Pollen grains in lake sediments: redeposition caused by seasonal water circulation. Science 162: 796-799.

Davis, M.B. and Brubaker, L.B. 1973. Differential sedimentation of pollen grains in lakes. Limnology and Oceanography 18: 635-645.

Davis, M.B. Brubaker, L.B. and Beiswenger, J.M. 1971. Pollen grains in lake sediments: pollen percentages in surface sediments from southern Michigan. Quaternary Research 1:4 50-467.

Davis, M. B., Brubaker, L. B. & Webb III, T. 1973. Calibration of absolute pollen influx. In Birks, H. J. B. & West, R. G. (eds.): Quaternary plant ecology - The 14th symposium of the British Ecological Society University of Cambridge, 28-20 March 1972, 9-25. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford.

Davis, M.B. and Ford, M.S. 1982. Sediment focusing in Mirror Lake, New Hampshire. Limnology and Oceanography 27: 137-150.

Dawson and Bliss 1989. Patterns of water use and the tissue water relations in the dioecious shrub, Salix arctica: the physiological basis for habitat partitioning between the sexes. Oecologia 79: 332-343.

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Di-Giovanni, F. 1989. The mathematical modelling of long-term tree-pollen deposition within mixed woodlands. PhD thesis, Univ.Hull, UK.

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Faegri, K. & Iversen, J. 1989. Textbook of pollen analysis. (IV Edition) Faegri, K, Kaland, P. E. & Krzywinski, K. 328 pp. John Wiley and Sons, Chichester.

Fagerlind, F. 1952. The real signification of pollen diagrams. Bot. Not. 105: 185-224.

Fall, P.L. 1981. Modern pollen spectra and their application to alluvial pollen sedimentology. M.S. Thesis, Univ. Ariz, 63 p.

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Giles, B.E. and Bengtsson, B.O. 1988. Variation in anther size in wild barley (Hordeum vulgare ssp. spontaneum). Hereditas 108: 199-205.

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Markgraf, V. 1980. Pollen dispersal in a mountain area. Grana 19: 127-146.

Markgraf, V. and Scott, L. 1981. Lower timberline in central Colorado during the past 15,000 years. Geology 9: 231-234.

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Effects of windiness on insect pollination (David W. Inouye, email 11/30/01)

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