Airborne pollen and its relationship with a crop environment

Abstract

The purpose of this  work was to analyze pollen deposition in an agroecosystem during the springsummer period and its relationship with vegetation structure in a great detail scale. The study was carried out  in the Station of the Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA), Balcarce, Buenos Aires Province. Vegetation censuses were carried out in three habitat types of this Pampean agriculture landscape: natural vegetation, park area and corn field. Aeropalynological samples were taken at the corners of the corn field. Plant taxa present in the site were characterized  according to different attributes (richness, composition, life form and dispersal type). Taxa present in the corn field were
compared with those obtained from the pollen spectrum. The three habitat types differred basically in their life form and composition. 54.16% of the identified taxa in vegetation of the corn field was present in the pollen record. In both vegetation and pollen record, zoophylous types and terophyte forms of life were dominant. The habitat types showed a low qualitative and quantitative similarity at a taxonomic analogies level based on the identified pollen types. As a result of this, the landscape showed a high homogeneity. However, constance analysis of taxa was powerful enough to discriminate the origin of deposited pollen (site, local and regional).