With the climate changing, the need to understand regional habitats and their adaptation is growing importance. And the most prominent and effective indicators are the plants and trees.
But, such elaborate survey of every plant species, finding out what sorts of plants live in a place, demands lots of economic and labor resources, and it is perhaps impossible and unwise a venture.
So, the solution? – Spiders! Yes, local spiders can provide a helping hand in such cumbersome surveys, according to a new study.
Researchers have intelligently spotted this plant survey tool. They are resorting to pollen captured in spider webs of southern and central Yunnan, China. The sticky webs carefully and successfully capture and hang onto pollen grains from local plants.
These captured and stored pollens can be an effective method in plant surveys across the world.
Cheng-Sen Li of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Beijing Museum of Natural History informs,
The [type] of pollen and spores identified from the spider webs can reflect the vegetation of the sampling site.
Though it is yet to be made clear, if the spider species themselves can be of any use in plant surveys, this pollen-spider connection will surely help understand both plant adaptation in changing climes and a particular region’s previous forest type and climate.
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