Pollen atlas of bee plants from the Greater Cape Floristic Region, South Africa

Résumé fourni par la source

• First digitally accessible pollen atlas for South African melittophilous flora. • Includes representatives of >85 % of most common genera and families in GCFR. • Suprageneric generalisations highlight taxonomic detail for pollen identification. The Greater Cape Floristic region (GCFR), houses over 11 000 species of which between 66–78 % are endemic. Thus, the applied use of pollen to analyse the composition of GCFR honeys requires specific identifications tools. This atlas provides detailed morphological descriptions of 339 species belonging to 209 genera and 68 families, which represents 29 of the 34 genera (85 %) and 23 of the 26 families (89 %) of the most common taxa in the GCFR. It is the collation of three melissopalynological collections available for the region, comprising both acetolysed and non-acetolysed accessions to maximise the utility of the atlas to the most common melissopalynological analysis procedures. Morphological keys and descriptions for all the included taxa to support the identification of the studied taxa are provided. Twenty-seven plates illustrating different views of the included specimens were arranged according to pollen morphology (apertural system and sculpture) allowing for easier visual comparison between taxa. The studied families were classified according to the distinctiveness of their pollen morphology, with the categories being stenopalynous (e.g., Aizoaceae, Crassulaceae, Ericaceae), intermediately stenopalynous (e.g., Asteraceae, Fabaceae, Proteaceae), and eurypalynous (e.g. Ebenaceae, Gentianaceae, Santalaceae). Taxa with very similar to indistinguishable morphologies that inhibits detailed taxonomic identification have been assigned to pollen types.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.