The Global Pollen Project: a new tool for pollen identification and the dissemination of physical reference collections

Abstract

Summary1. The study of fossil and modern pollen assemblages provides essential information about vegetation dynamics in space and time. A major methodological component of these studies is the identification of pollen grains to plant family, genus and species. This identification is achieved through the use of pollen keys and reference collections of physical specimens, which are regional in scope, disparate and incomplete, slowing the identification process. Reference material is also held in museums and research institutions, where access can be limited. Identification is particularly challenging for those new to the field, such as graduate students. 2. To aid the identification of pollen grains, and provide virtual access to reference material, we present a new online tool: the Global Pollen Project (https://globalpollenproject.org). The project aims to enable people to share and identify pollen grains and through this, will create an open, free and accessible reference library for pollen identification. 3. The online tool has been developed as an open, peer-reviewed database of global pollen, where content and expertise is crowdsourced from across the world. The tool enables: (i) the submission and identification of unknown pollen grains; (ii) the submission and digitisation of existing 'physical' reference collections and (iii) the availability of a free public database of pollen images and their metadata, for use in scientific research and education. The tool connects to external services, including the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and Neotoma Palaeoecology Database, to provide botanical descriptions and occurrence data for each taxon, alongside pollen images and metadata. 4. The database currently holds information for over 1500 species, from Europe, the Americas and Asia. As the collection grows, we envision easier pollen identification, and greater use of the database for novel research on pollen morphology and other characteristics, especially when linked to other palaeoecological databases, such as Neotoma.

The Neotoma Paleoecology Database, a multiproxy, international, community-curated data resource

“…Likely API users include the following: scientists who need to incorporate the most current data into analytical workflows such as scripts written in R; organizations that want to distribute Neotoma data (with attribution) via their own data portal or web interface (e.g., customized and branded web portals for individual constituent databases); and developers creating stand-alone applications for data analysis and display. Known third-party users of Neotoma APIs include NOAA Paleoclimatology (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/ paleoclimatology-data), which has a data search portal that will search and retrieve data housed in either NOAA or Neotoma; Flyover Country (http://fc.umn.edu/), a mobile app-based program for travelers to discover geologic data and knowledge during their journeys (Loeffler et al, 2015); and the Global Pollen Project (https://globalpollenproject.org/) (Martin and Harvey, 2017), a community platform for pollen identification. The APIs are implemented as platform-and language-independent RESTful web services; response formats include JSON and XML.…”

The Legacy of Pre–Columbian Fire on the Pine–Oak Forests of Upland Guatemala

“…For each level a minimum of 300 terrestrial pollen grains were counted (Data Sheet 1). Morphological identification was achieved using (i) pollen databases (APSA, 2007;Bush and Weng, 2007;Martin and Harvey, 2017); (ii) published plates: (Roubik and Moreno, 1991;Willard et al, 2004); and (iii) botanical reference materials from the OxLEL reference collection. In order to interpret the relative composition of the forest, coniferous and mixed-hardwood forest (MHWF) canopy taxa were compared as a ratio.…”

The Apparent Resilience of the Dry Tropical Forests of the Nicaraguan Region of the Central American Dry Corridor to Variations in Climate Over the Last C. 1200 Years

“…For each level, a minimum of 300 terrestrial pollen grains were counted. Morphological identification (see supplementary materials Table S2) was achieved using (i) pollen databases [86][87][88]; (ii) published plates: [89,90]; and (iii) botanical reference materials from the OxLEL reference collections and specimens collected in the field (see supplementary materials Figure S1). Amaranthus spinosus was removed from the total palynological counts due to overrepresentation within the assemblage [91].…”