Morphological diversity of pollen and spores in a human-impacted highland forest-agriculture mosaic in northern Thailand.

Abstract

Pollen and spore morphology provides essential taxonomic reference data for floristic and environmental studies in tropical regions, where modern comparative datasets remain limited. This study documents the morphological characteristics of pollen and spores recovered from a shallow soil profile in a degraded mixed deciduous forest within Sri Nan National Park, northern Thailand. Using a non-acetolysis extraction protocol and systematic sub-sampling of a 30-cm profile, pollen and spores representing 37 plant families were identified, including lycophytes, bryophytes, monilophytes, gymnosperms, and angiosperms. Spore-producing taxa, particularly monilophytes, dominate the assemblage, while angiosperm pollen includes both arboreal and non-arboreal elements. More than 100 morphotypes are described based on aperture type, exine ornamentation, size, and symmetry, supported by high-resolution photomicrographs and standardized morphotype descriptions. The resulting dataset expands the regional palynological reference framework for northern Thailand and tropical Southeast Asia and supports consistent taxonomic identification in palynological, floristic, and comparative paleoecological studies, particularly in human-impacted forest-agriculture mosaics.

Plant phenotyping relevance

植物の花粉・胞子形態を標準化して記載し、高解像度画像を含む再利用可能な地域参照データセットを構築しており、形態取得・記述が研究の中心です。

Code and data availability

The article documents pollen/spore morphotypes from a soil profile in Sri Nan National Park, but no supplied block contains a public repository deposit, author code, or dataset URL for the morphotype data or photomicrographs. The Supplementary dataset is referenced only via the article DOI, with no actionable public-Ph

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