Tag: "pollen" at biology news

The kapok connection -- Study explains rainforest similarities

...avel as far as 12 miles between trees and transfer pollen in the process. When the seed pods ripen, they break open to reveal fluffy fibers that are used to stuff pillows and mattresses. The seeds, which are about the size of a sunflower seed, are buoyant and able to float down rivers along which the coloss...

Hives ferment a yeasty brew, attract beetle pest

...their invasion by a yeast that naturally occurs on pollen and produces, as a fermentation product, the alarm...ast only produced IPA when it grew on pollen. Even pollen substitute, a food sometimes provided for bees, did not increase the amounts of IPA produced. "We...

Paper challenges 1491 Amazonian population theories

... ancient lakes. He then analyzes those samples for pollen and charcoal and thus is able to conclude with a h...step in making the case, through core sampling and pollen and charcoal analysis of sediment from seven lake bottoms, three in one district, four in the other,...

Hay fever can send work productivity down the drain

...unoglobulin E (IgE) to specific allergens, such as pollen from grass and trees. IgE is an antibody that triggers allergic reactions. In a previous study, Szeinbach found that the ImmunoCAP IgE blood test was more accurate in diagnosing allergies when compared to other specific IgE blood tests. While IgE ...

Two studies on bee evolution reveal surprises

...s are known to affect plant evolution by spreading pollen and preferring to pollinate some types of plants over others. Because scientists assume that bees have essentially always been around, pollinating plants and "creating" new species, it has been a mystery why the bee fossil record only dated back abou...

'Allergy cells' can aggravate cancer and psoriasis

... reactions are activated when an allergen (such as pollen particles) binds to receptors on the surface of the mast cell, which then opens and secretes part of its contents. In the past few years it has emerged that mast cells, which are a type of immune cell, are probably also involved in the development ...

Honey bee genome holds clues to social behavior

... larvae, and then shift to foraging for nectar and pollen as they age. However, if the hive has a shortage of foragers, some of the young nurse bees will switch jobs and become foragers. The job transition, whether triggered by age or social cues, involves changes in thousands of genes in the honey bee br...

Researchers find that bumblebees' flower choice matters

To predict where a bumblebee will carry its pollen next, you have to literally think like one. "Once... are studying the behaviors of bees as they gather pollen ?which plant species the bees forage on, which flowers they probe and in what order, and how many bl...

Pollen proves beneficial for northern lakes

Mention the word pollen to most people and it triggers thoughts of their b...of A, has shown for the first time the benefits of pollen on boreal lakes. Rich in nutrients, pollen is an essential component of plant fertilization but few ...

Ecosystem services and invasive species

...iversity of Tennessee - Knoxville) used historical pollen records to predict what shifts in species composition might occur in the threatened areas. Heard will discuss the results and the eleven sites established in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for long-term monitoring of both canopy and underst...

Allergy battle could be won in five years, says scientist

...he tubes of the lungs," he said. "Allergens from pollen or house dust mites are inhaled and then dissolve the binding material between the cells that form these protective linings; they can then enter the body by passing between the cells to cause an allergic response. "The drugs we are developing -- ca...

Discovery may speed forest biotechnology

...why forest trees don't flower and produce seed and pollen earlier," Strauss said. "When they are young, the trees that survive need to focus their energy on growth and height in order to compete for sunlight with other trees, and only later in their life do they divert energy to produce seed." Strauss note...

ASU researchers find link between social behavior, maternal traits in bees

...hether the worker bees were more likely to collect pollen or nectar. Besides their differing collecting habi...develop their ovaries and lay eggs." Foraging for pollen is a maternal reproductive behavior in solitary species of bees, while non-reproductive solitary bee...

Study: Competition for sex is a 'jungle out there'

...uld push them towards extinction. One reason that pollen becomes limiting to plants in regions of high dive...ators do arrive, they may deliver lots of unusable pollen from other plant species. Knight and her colleagues found this pattern to be especially true for sp...

UCSD biologists find new evidence for one-way evolution

...tion. Apparently, once lost, the ability to reject pollen in order to prevent self-fertilization is never re...unclear," Species capable of rejecting their own pollen in favor of pollen from other individuals, harbor more genetic variation than those that self-fertil...

Human albumin from tobacco plants

...nique does not involve the escape of genes through pollen transmission given that, with most crops under cultivation, the genome of the plastids is inherited maternally. More biomass in tobacco plants The tobacco plant is very easy to handle genetically and also it is great generator of biomass. The au...

Primates harvest bee nests in Ugandan reserve

...Nest abundance did not vary with altitude, nor did pollen collection or the seasonality of flowering. Both ...honeybees in the New World, documenting effects of pollen and nectar collecting and nesting ecology on native-American stingless bees. Kajobe invited Roubik ...

The secret love life of plants

...l. Pollen lands on the flower's stigma and forms a pollen tube. It then uses each one of its two sperm cells...of a failed cell division, the cdc2-plants develop pollen that has only one sperm cell instead of two. The researchers have now been exploring the question if...

New factor implicated in allergy and asthma attacks

...or a person with allergies or asthma, breathing in pollen can be a very bad thing. Within minutes of inhalat.... Scientists have long assumed that they know how pollen produces such debilitating responses. They blame an overreaction by the body's immune system, set of...

Divergent mating systems and parental conflict as a barrier to hybridization in flowering plants

...on pattern of unilateral incompatibility, in which pollen from self-incompatible populations can successfully fertilize ovules of self-compatible individuals, but the reciprocal cross fails. Since both pre- and post-zygotic consequences of this imbalanced conflict can perturb successful fertilization and de...

1 2