Learning about bees through paternity tests for fruits

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Bees drop pollen during flight and that pollen sometimes lands on trees and their fruit. Professor Shalene Jha follows this pollen trail to discover bees’ travel patterns. Using genetic and genomic techniques, she is able to establish the fruit’s ‘father’ and therefore discover where a bee has travelled. (Image: A stingless bee visits a Miconia tree near Soberania, Credit: Antonio Castilla.)