Atlas of pollen and spores and their parent taxa of Mt Kilimanjaro and tropical East Africa

Abstract

Abstract The accurate and consistent identification of fossil pollen is essential to allow robust inferences to be drawn with regard to past vegetation and climate change. Identifications are best achieved through the direct inspection of reference material. Most substantial reference collections are located at research institutions in Europe or North America, which restricts access for researchers trying to advance palynology in less developed countries. Due to the development of digital imaging and fast internet access it is now possible to produce high quality images from pollen and spore reference collections and make them globally available. In this pollen and spore atlas we contribute to this growing body of work by presenting images of 240 pollen types (in 202 genera and ∼79 families) and 30 spore types (in 25 genera and ∼17 families) from a wide range of different vegetation types originating from the Kilimanjaro area and tropical East Africa. We provide an overview on the range of pollen and spore types commonly found in Last Glacial and Holocene sedimentary archives in studies from the Kilimanjaro area and tropical East Africa. Besides a pollen key, detailed information is given on pollination, habitus and habitat which all support the interpretation and environmental reconstructions from pollen records. The atlas will serve as useful guide for palynological investigations, aiming at detailed and comprehensive reconstruction of past vegetation, environmental and climate change in tropical East Africa.