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Abstract

The Asteraceae family is one of the largest plant families within southern Africa, providing key information relating to ecological changes in vegetation structure and climate. This paper specifically aimed to analyse two coastal species namely the Osteospermum moniliferum (Coastal thicket affinity) and the Metalasia muricata (Fynbos affinity) within the Cape Floristic Region. The results of this project found three significantly different pollen morphology types that can be used to differentiate between the two selected species, namely the number of spines between each colpi, the size of the pollen grains, as well as the cap length on each spine. The next step was to then apply this knowledge to the Eilandvlei sequence (Quick et al. 2018) situated along the southern Cape coast of South Africa. The Asteraceae family was identified as one of the most dominant taxa within this assemblage, with the High Spine group accounting for 55% of the total Asteraceae that were originally counted, providing no ecological or climate information. Applying the new classifications indicated that the Coastal thicket ecological group was underrepresented within the assemblage due to the lack of a fine scale classification. Neighbouring studies along the southern Cape coast as well as those across the different South African biomes also lack the classifications needed to differentiate among the Asteraceae more fully, highlighting the need for a re-examination of these records to provide greater ecological insight into the past climate data that could potentially aid scientists, local stakeholders, and policymakers on conservation efforts within key biodiversity hotspots.