Pollen metabarcoding from bees in a historic collection

In this project, the first report of metabarcoding of limited pollen sampled from individual bees housed in a historic collection is given. Three different barcoding regions were examined and plant provenance could be established for samples using two of these for pollen as old as 102 years. The importance of a local sequence reference database for comparison was also revealed in this research. The identification of some fungal contaminants in pollen samples could provide useful future guidelines on the handling of collection specimens if they are to be used for secondary purposes, such as DNA collection. The ability to use historic collections for metabarcoding is a relevant development in the field of pollen metabarcoding.