Time & Location
26 Mar 2025, 18:30 – 20:30
Franschhoek, 15 Akademie St, Franschhoek, 7690, South Africa
About the event
The Incredible Journey of Pollen
Prof. Bruce Anderson, University of Stellenbosch
Wednesday 26 March, Franschhoek Theatre
The sex lives of plants are far more complex than they seem. Most flowers are hermaphrodites, but measuring their reproductive success isn’t simple. A flower’s female fitness is easy to assess—just count the seeds. But its male fitness? That requires a difficult botanical 'paternity test'.
Join Prof. Bruce Anderson as he reveals a fascinating new way to study plant reproduction: tracking individual grains of pollen using quantum dots. This journey into the hidden life of pollen will take us from left- and right-handed flowers to fluorescent nanoparticles, and even into the high-stakes competition between pollen grains as they race to reach their destination.
Prof. Anderson is an evolutionary ecologist specialising in plant-animal interactions. Initially drawn to studying animals, he later turned his focus to plants, particularly their strategies for dispersing seeds and pollen via…