Pollen load assessment
We removed pollen from pollinators’ bodies with Fuchsin jelly (Kearns,
1993), melted the jelly onto slides (hereafter “pollinator slides”),
and visualized pollen using a light microscope. We also made slides of
pollen from the anthers of the plant species on which each pollinator
was caught (hereafter “anther slides”). We compared pollen on the
anther slides to pollen on the pollinator slides to determine the number
of grains that were conspecific for each pollinator. To identify
heterospecific pollen to species we compared pollen on pollinator slides
to pollen made from the anthers of other flowering plants at each site.
We cross-referenced pollen identifications with photos from the Global
Pollen Project (globalpollenproject.org).