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A Comparison Of Pollen Counts: Light Versus Scanning Electron Microscopy, Gretchen D. Jones, Vaughn M. Bryant Jr.

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Palynologists use compound light microscopy (LM) for pollen identification and interpretation and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for morphological comparisons and taxonomy. As we are unaware of any published reports comparing LM and SEM pollen counts and identifications of the same sample, we decided to examine a surface soil sample using both microscopes. Standard palynological extraction techniques were used. Two, 300 grain counts were made using LM, and two, 300 counts with SEM. Pollen grains viewed with SEM were also divided into three categories, ‘‘identifiable,’’ ‘‘obscured,’’ and ‘‘virtually impossible to identify’’. Eighty-six (86) percent of the pollen grains counted with SEM …