Anemophilous pollen size and variability measured with imaging cytometry

This data repository contains pollen size data and code for data analysis supplementing the study:

Hornick, T, Harpole, WS, Dunker, S (2025). High-throughput assessment of anemophilous pollen size and variability using imaging cytometry.

Background: Pollen grain size relates e.g., to aspects of plant community structure, plant phylogeny or can be used as a decisive trait for pollen species distinction. However, the availability of pollen size data is limited because of labor and time-consuming methodological constraints, thus restricting our knowledge of pollen size variability in response to biotic and abiotic conditions. We addressed this data gap by using Imaging Flow Cytometry (IFC) which allows for high-throughput assessment of pollen size and measured >500,000 single pollen from 100 anemophilous (i.e., wind-pollinated) species that were sampled between 2018 and 2022. 

Data: 

• data_and_code:
  • data:
    • 'README_data.txt': Description of datasets
    • Raw_data:
      • 'data.txt': Image size features of pollen measured with IFC
      • 'IFC-files': Cytometry-files of measured Coulter® CC Size Standard L20 (Coulter Corporation, Miami, FL, USA)
    • Metadata:
      • 'metadata.csv': Taxonomy of 100 anemophilous species used in this study and literature size estimatates from three sources as describes in Hornick et al., 2025 
      • '100anemophilous-species.tre': Phylogenetic tree data of the considered 100 anemophilous species
  • code
    • README_code.txt: Short description of R-files
    • R-packages: Dependencies
    • 'DataAnalysis.Rmd': R-Code for data analysis
    • 'Feature-export_Accuracy-L20Beads.Rmd': Skript for export of size features from cytometry-files using the R-environment; Skript for the analysis of the 'Length'-feature of different mask settings for determining the measurement accuracy by using Coulter® CC Size Standard L20 (Coulter Corporation, Miami, FL, USA).
• tables:
  • Aggregated data tables as result of data analysis: 
    
    • README_tables.txt: Short description of table content
    • 'Betula.pendula_mean.csv': Mean pollen size of individual Betula pendula trees across years
    • 'TabS1.xlsx': Species mean pollen size and size variation measured with IFC