Pollen production values of common British plant species
This dataset is under embargo and will be made available by 1 January 2026 at the latest Find out more »
Cite this dataset as:
Baude, M.; Kunin, W.; Davies, N.; Wright, E.; Memmott, J. (2025). Pollen production values of common British plant species. NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/0b454d53-dfe7-48fd-9e18-b683d004b159
Download/Access
This dataset is under embargo and will be made available by 1 January 2026 at the latest Find out more »
https://doi.org/10.5285/0b454d53-dfe7-48fd-9e18-b683d004b159
This dataset provides pollen production values for 168 common plant species found in the UK. The dataset consists of pollen volume per flower, calculated from pollen grain number and pollen grain size. Pollen data can be useful in identifying the high pollen producing species for pollinator conservation and it can be combined with floral surveys to estimate the pollen production of plant communities.
Publication date: 2025-03-17
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Format
Comma-separated values (CSV)
Spatial information
Study area
Spatial representation type
Tabular (text)
Spatial reference system
OSGB 1936 / British National Grid
Provenance & quality
Fieldwork: collection of stems with flower buds for 174 taxa (from 2 populations per species when possible)
Labwork steps:
-Extracting the pollen from newly opened anthers for 168 taxa
-Counting pollen grains under microscope (modified Fuchs-Rosenthal counting chamber) to estimate the mean number of pollen grains per stamen for each species.
-Measuring pollen grain axes for calculating the mean volume of the one pollen grain for each species (in µm3).
-Estimating the pollen volume per stamen and then the pollen volume per flower after recording the number of stamens per flower for each species (in µm3)
Quality control: from each tube, pollen counting was repeated twice in order to provide two replicates per sample. Plant species taxonomy was standardised through the ‘rgbif’ package according to the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy reference.
Labwork steps:
-Extracting the pollen from newly opened anthers for 168 taxa
-Counting pollen grains under microscope (modified Fuchs-Rosenthal counting chamber) to estimate the mean number of pollen grains per stamen for each species.
-Measuring pollen grain axes for calculating the mean volume of the one pollen grain for each species (in µm3).
-Estimating the pollen volume per stamen and then the pollen volume per flower after recording the number of stamens per flower for each species (in µm3)
Quality control: from each tube, pollen counting was repeated twice in order to provide two replicates per sample. Plant species taxonomy was standardised through the ‘rgbif’ package according to the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy reference.
Licensing and constraints
This dataset is under embargo and will be made available by 1 January 2026 at the latest Find out more »
This dataset will be available under the terms of the Open Government Licence 
Cite this dataset as:
Baude, M.; Kunin, W.; Davies, N.; Wright, E.; Memmott, J. (2025). Pollen production values of common British plant species. NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/0b454d53-dfe7-48fd-9e18-b683d004b159
Related
Correspondence/contact details
Baude, M.
Université d’Orléans, Orléans, France
Sorbonne Université, UPEC, Université Paris Cité, CNRS, IRD, INRAE, Institut d’Ecologie et des Sciences de l’Environnement (iEES Paris),
Paris
FRANCE
mathilde.baude@univ-orleans.fr
Paris
FRANCE
Authors
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8475-9852
Davies, N.
University of Bristol
Other contacts
Rights holder
University of Bristol
Custodian
NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre
info@eidc.ac.uk
Publisher
NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre
info@eidc.ac.uk
Additional metadata
Keywords
Funding
Natural Environment Research Council Award: NE/L002434/1
Last updated
27 March 2025 16:39