PALYNOLOGY WEB SITES OF THE MONTH
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for December, 2002, is the
Gallery of Flowers, Flower Visitors
page maintained by
David L. Green.
This site has dozens of high-quality images of pollinators including
honey bees, bumble bees, carpenter bees and other solitary bees, syrphids,
bombyliids, droneflies, moths, butterflies, and more!
It also hosts illustrated guides to
hand pollination,
honey bee identification,
a pollination slide show,
and links to other pollination pages.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for November, 2002, is the
"Airborne Organisms"
web page of
The Microbial World,
maintained by
Jim Deacon
at the University of Edinburgh.
Jim's web site is filled with aeroallergy information, and the
Airborne Organisms
page is the most complete online compendium of mechanical airborne samplers that I am aware of;
including the
Rotorod,
Burkhard, and Anderson samplers. It includes text references and links.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for October, 2002, is the
Dispersal of Maize Pollen
internet research paper by
Jean Emberlin
and students at
The National Pollen Research Unit,
University College, Worcester, England.
Even though this is "just" a page, it has the best qualities of internet publications.
FIRST, it is a scholarly work that makes use of both paper and internet publications.
SECOND, it is a generous donation of valuable information of use to all palynologists.
For me, the "bull rows" in seed-corn fields are the best way
to communicate the idea of aerial pollen dispersal to introductory audiences.
THIRD, it makes use of a generous service provided by
mindfully.org.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for September, 2002, is the
microscopic view into the past
website by Keith W. Abineri, hosted by
www.microscopy-uk.org.uk.
The page (prepared with the help of David Batten), includes illustrations of palynomorphs
from the Kimmeridge Clay of the Dorset, England coast; including wood fragments, dinoflagellate
cysts and Classopolis pollen.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for August, 2002, is the
Alphibetical List of Chitinozoans
maintained by Geosciences Rennes UMR 6118 du CNRS.
The list includes species name, sub-species, original genus, author and year; sorted by
species name.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for July, 2002, is the
Dinoflagellate Morphology web page
maintained by the University of Miami Department of Biology.
The site presents basic morphology (not dinoflagellate cyst morphology)
as well as elements of dinoflagellate
life history
and
evolution.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for June, 2002, is the
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)
Virtual Field Trip site.
This TEKS program provides curriculum support museums and education centers of Texas
through internet links, including 65 virtual field trips, in particular the
Virtual Apiary,
made with the help of palynologists Gretchen Jones and V.M. Bryant, Jr.
Palynologists should see the pages of stunning
plant pictures and pollen grains
for several Texas regions.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for May, 2002, is the
Bob Gastaldo's Paleobotany Class Notes
Professors the world over are increasingly putting their lecture notes
online in a generous act that promotes education in their own classrooms
and in the global internet community. Bob's notes from Colby College are
a particularly well-done example of this selfless act. The notes for
Paleobotany include lectures on
early land plants,
the diversification of Angiosperms,
and sixteen other topics.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for April, 2002, is the
Cyanobacterial Image Gallery
page of the Purdue University
Cyanosite
maintained by
Mark Schneegurt
This award-winning site has pictures of everything from akinetes to stromatolites.
As you surely know akinetes occur in palynological preps, and have been used
in the paleoecological reconstruction of ancient environments.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for March, 2002, is the
Airborne Fungal Spores
page, designed and is maintained by
Fee Warner, at the University
College, Worcester, UK.
In addition to nice photomicrographs of common spores of
ascomycetes,
basidiomycetes, and
fungi imperfecti
Fee's site addresses other topics such as
fungal spores and allergy
and has links to other
allergy and fungal spore pages.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for February, 2002, is
Pollinator Paradise
of Parma, Idaho, maintained by by
Karen Strickler.
This page has added a lot of information since I first visited it. It is
a wonderful source of web-ucation including;
what is pollination, a page all about
solitary bees (very extensive), and a page of
pollination research ppt slide shows.
This generous contribution of original information is very much appreciated.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for January, 2002, is
The Dung File
hosted by Alwynne B. Beaudoin of the
University of Alberta. Pollen and spores are a primary means of studying dung.
This is a tremendous bibliographic source, available only on the web.
It is presented in ten parts:
Human,
Mammal,
Other Critters, etc.
Dr. Beaudoin has carefully annotated each reference.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for December, 2001, is Jansonius and Hills'
Genera File of Fossil Spores
on the IOP web site.
This is a partial compilation (A-M) of Jansonius and Hills' 1976 publication.
The anonymous authors of the site state that it is a "feasibility study," and
that it, "contains errors that our editors have missed." Nonetheless, it is a
valuable source of information and an interesting historical demonstration of
the potential value of such catalogs, on the internet.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for November, 2001, is
University of Calgary
web site maintained by Andrew MacRae.
This site contains original illustrations of
pollen and spores,
and a rich compilation of illustration, links, and references regarding
dinoflagellates.
(Many of the links are old, but there's still a ton of useful information on this page.)
There's also a page of
Type Images
for selected dinos and acritarchs.
This site is well worth the visit.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for October, 2001, is
the Red Española de Aerobiología
web site maintained by Antonio Velasco Blanco.
This site contains English and Spanish versions of maps of
airborne pollen,
links to collaborating researchers,
an introduction to ariborne pollen sampling
and
an illustrated flora of Cordoba (southern Spain).
This is a great site to browse through, and download data.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for September, 2001, is the the USGS
"Spores and Pollen"
web site maintained by Laurel Bybell.
This site contains a simple explanation of palynology for the general public, and
provides bigraphical links for some of the USGS palynologist stationed at Reston,
Virginia. It has links to some of that branch's current research; e.g.,
The South Florida Ecosystem.
The "Spores and Pollen" page is one of eight
"Major Fossil Groups"
featured by the USGS Eastern Region.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for August, 2001, is the
the MultidataTM web site
(pollen.com),
hosted and managed by
NewsEdge Corporation.
The site is designed for the general public and features
links to current aeroallergy news,
general allergy information, and
maps and pollen images for allergens.
There's also a page of
abstracts
of published articles on airborne sampling and counting.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for July, 2001, is the
Réseau National de Surveillance Aérobiologique (R.N.S.A.)
site. This aeroallergy site includes illustrations of
pollen grains and plants, a
bulletin,
which includes color-coded maps of current allergy risks, and previous seasons'
maps
of allergy risk. It is a simple, attractive, and very well done site.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for June, 2001, is the
The African Pollen Database administered by an
Executive Committee and maintained by
Medias-France
The site includes a
history
of the organization,
newsletters,
online pollen diagrams,
and an
index map
of Quaternary pollen investigation. It also contains one of the most extensive
pollen image databases
on the web. It is substantial contribution to palynology.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for May, 2001, is the
Bangor/Aberystwyth Pollen Image Database
maintained by Ian France.
This very interesting site presents the "holy grail" of contemporary pollen technology -
computer-automated pollen identification - letting the computer do the work.
My personal opinion (so write me, already) is that it would be premature to
form a palynologists union to protect our jobs. It may eventually be possible, but not
with any computer to be made in the next 50 years. Sure, imaging technology can pick
a restricted set of well-preserved (including crumpled) grains out of a clean (without debris)
preparation, but that isn't what we are working with. I hope someone gets a really
big grant to work on this, and given that 1990's "INSTRUMENT-ENVY" has replaced
1980's "PHYSICS-ENVY," I think "the current funding environment is favorable."
Feeble attempts at humor aside, I recommend the site as one of the most innovative palynological
"hard science" web sites on the internet. Furthermore, the data Ian and his colleagues have
collected are posted on the site.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for April, 2001, is the
PalDat site of the
University of Vienna, Austria, copyrighted by R. Buchner and M. Weber.
This beautifully rendered site was first called to my
attention by Vaughn Bryant who noticed that one of the pollen grains
in its opening page was misidentified when the cursor is placed over the
grain (this only works with MS Explorer ® [alt = ""]). The site also claims in
its meta statements to be the "first searchable database related to pollen and palynology,"
a distinction that I believe goes to ANU.
Those minor issues aside, it is one of the best sites on the web for pollen
illustrations. Its searchable database includes 87 families and 234 genera of plants,
each with several scanning electron micrographs and pollen morphological
literature references. Use of the site requires a simple registration.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for March, 2001, is
Estelle Levetin's
Tulsa Pollen HomePage.
This is a very nice site with a lot of information
attractively presented. It has a K-12
airborne pollen exercise
and an
aeroallergy exercise.
One of the nicest features of the site is the
Spring Pollen Types section
of the Seasonal Pollen Calendar. Several of the Spring bloomers have a page of
plant pictures, (unprocessed) pollen pictures, and tables and graphs of pollen and spore counts.
These are also linked to in the
Tulsa Pollen Calendar. The site has
many pages of original data, and pages of links to aeroallergy organizations.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for February, 2001, is
PARC's (Paleoenvironmental Arctic Science)
Microfossil Reference Page.
The page contains several images of amoeba cysts, and
links
to selected arctic palynological investigations.
The site is on the NGDC server
and appears to be maintained by Duvall@u.washington.edu.
The Palynology Web Site of the Month for January, 2001, is
APLE's
IPC 11 Web Page.
(APLE is the ASOCIACIÓN DE PALINÓLOGOS DE LENGUA ESPAÑOLA and
IPC is the INTERNATIONAL POLLEN CONGRESS)
The site is offered in Spanish and English versions and provides extensive
details for the upcoming (2004, July 4-9) International Palynology meetings
in Granada Spain. All aspects of these meetings are covered in detail, including
venue,
travel arrangements,
hotel accommodations,
and
congress tours.
Owen Davis