Natural traps of spores and pollen grains from the region surrounding Wenbi Reservoir,Yunnan,China

We did a comparative analysis of pollen and spores from five kinds of natural pollen traps at Wenbi Reservoir, northwest Yunnan, China. The natural traps were the surface soil, ground inhabiting mosses, spider webs, tree bark and moss/lichen on trees. These traps showed qualitative and quantitative variations in the pollen and spore spectra. The palynomorphs recovered from the soil samples of trees and shrubs ranged from 90.54% to 95.98% of the total counts. These counts were higher than counts from ground mosses(53.13%–81.66%), spider webs(61.71%), bark samples(53.8%) and moss/lichen on trees(50%–53.6%). The result of pollen/spore analysis showed that surface soil, ground mosses and spider webs better reflect the local vegetation compared with tree bark or moss/lichen on trees.