Pollen identification has applications in apiculture, allergy alleviation, and studies of climatic change and vegetation cover. It is also a powerful tool for determining the floral composition of landscapes surrounding aquatic systems.

Pollen is a common food source of fish and macroinvertebrates, and can be identified from gut analyses. Identification of pollen in paleolimnological studies helps to construct the ecological history of a body of water and its surroundings. Ecological history is an important tool in the establishment of goals for water quality management.

BSA provides identification of pollen specimens collected from tow, grab, attached, paleolimnological core, and fish gut samples. In a pollen analysis, pollen is accurately identified to genus using light microscopy techniques.

As an additional service, permanent slide mounts of pollen samples are prepared for client voucher collections using standard methods. All sample results are entered into our databases and reviewed for quality assurance.