The occurrence of symptoms in pollen allergy patients in urban areas may be affected by local environmental factors such as sources of pollution, natural and ornamental vegetation, local architecture impeding dispersion, etc. The aim of this study was to analyse the frequency of sensitization in pollen allergy patients and the relationship with antihistamine sales. For this study, a large numbe...

The water and nutrient status of pollen is crucial to plant reproduction. Pollen grains of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) contain a large vegetative cell and two smaller sperm cells. Pollen grains express AtTIP1;3 and AtTIP5;1, two members of the Tonoplast Intrinsic Protein subfamily of aquaporins. To address the spatial and temporal expression pattern of the two homologs, C-terminal fusion...

This study documents the flowering phenology and its potential consequences on a nursery pollination mutualism between a dioecious plant, in which honest male plants, but not cheating females, allow the specific pollinator to reproduce within inflorescences. Very few pollinators were found to emerge during plant anthesis, leading to a low (if any) potential benefit through pollen dispersal. Thi...

The formation of mature and fertile pollen grains, taking place inside the anther, depends on supply of assimilates, in the form of sucrose, provided mainly by the leaves. Data is limited, however, with respect to the understanding of sucrose metabolism in microspores and the supporting tissues. The aims of the present work were to 1) follow the changes in total and relative concentrations of s...

Knowledge about the botanical source of honey is very important for the beekeeper while it indicates adequate and abundant supply sources of nectar and pollen for the bees, thus contributing toward improved yield. The present study means to identify the pollen types occurring in 58 samples of honey produced in two states of the northeastern region of Brazil, Piauí (38 samples) and Ceará (20 sam...

Ploidy level is one of important factors for plant breeders; therefore models that can predict it are very practical. To estimate of ploidy levels in some species, hybrids and cultivars of Rosa, dimensions of over 500 pollens include pollen length, width and area measured at ABRII. The calculations were carried out in several stages. First, Ploidy levels were regressed with pollen dimensions, a...

Juvenile malnourishment affects learning and task performance in many species, and is well documented in mammals, but poorly studied in invertebrates. We examined the effect of nutritional stress during larval development on the longevity and task performance of honey bee (Apis mellifera) adults. Nutritional stress occurs naturally in honey bee colonies when pollen, which provides honey bees wi...

Seed production in the endemic New Zealand mistletoe Peraxilla tetrapetala (Loranthaceae) has been shown to be consistently pollen limited, but to date there has been no test of whether the species is also seed limited. If it is not seed limited, then pollen limitation may have no effect on population size.We tested for seed limitation by sowing seeds onto host trees at high and low densities a...

Plant pollens and fungal spores are massively produced in natural habitats large-scaled agricultural areas, the airborne transported biomass can be accumulated on relatively large crop surfaces. A pollen grain contains a specific chemical composition quantity quality, highly varied among plant species. So, could provide species-specific nutrient supply for initial development trap. Thus, this i...