[Pollinator] Extracting pollen from ethanol

[Asya Robertshaw]

Hi all,

I'm a graduate student in pollination biology and as part of my PhD
dissertation I am trying to identify pollen grains on insects' bodies. I've
collected a number of pollinators over the years that were stored in glass
vials in 70% ethanol until they were pinned. Now I am trying to extract the
pollen that was left behind in the ethanol when the insects were removed.
Does anyone have any suggestions for how to do that efficiently? I've tried
to simply let the ethanol evaporate from the vials, but that takes a very
long time. I've also tried centrifuging the solution, which works great.
However, because of the large volume of ethanol in each vial, I need to
transfer it to at least 7-8 microcentrifuge tubes, which is also not very
efficient considering how many total samples I have. If anyone has any
other methods or tips for getting the pollen out of the ethanol solution, I
would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks!
Asya

-- 
Asya Robertshaw
Doctoral Candidate
Purdue University
Dept of Botany & Plant Pathology
915 W State Street
West Lafayette, IN 47907
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