Potent pine pollen travels many miles.

• Position: Forestry

The loblolly pine pollen that coated your home, car, and pets this spring is the tree's attempt to spread its genes far and wide. The yellow dust has been found to travel up to 1,800 miles from its source. Despite exposure to moisture, cold, and UV radiation from sunlight during its long travels, more than half of the pollen still can do its job--make pine lee seeds, observes forest biologist Claire Williams, who studies airborne pollen at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, Durham, N.C.

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Williams and her colleagues use a handheld device called a spore sampler to capture and analyze pollen found miles out to sea off the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Sampling by helicopter and ferry they found viable pine Doilan as far as 2,000 feet in the air and 25 miles offshore. More than 50% of loblolly pine pollen still germinates after drifting those distances, they discovered. "The odd thing is that pollen germination does not decline as distance increases. You would expect germination to gradually drop off as pollen floats farther away, but that's not the case."

Loblolly pollen's incredible staying power could have profound implications if and when the USDA approves genetically engineered trees. "Long-distance dispersal of transgenic pine pollen is a potential problem if that pollen is viable," declares Williams, who al so works with the Forest History Society.

If a single tree can send its DNA dozens of miles, it would be difficult to prevent traits...