Data from: Spatial variation in bird pollination and its mitigating effects on the genetic diversity of pollen pools accepted by Camellia japonica trees within a population at a landscape level

Bird pollination can vary spatially in response to spatial fluctuations in
flowering even within plant populations. In this study, we examined the
hypothesis that the spatial variation in bird pollination may induce
mitigating effects which maintains or increases genetic diversity of
pollen pools at local sites with low flowering densities. To test this
hypothesis, we analyzed the landscape-level genetic effects within a
population of Camellia japonica on the pollen pools accepted by
individuals in two reproductive years by using genotypes at eight
microsatellite loci of 1323 seeds from 19 seed parents. Regression
analyses using the quadratic models of correlated paternity between pollen
pools against spatial distances between the seed-parent pairs revealed not
only local pollination but also some amount of long-distance pollen
dispersal. The genetic diversity of pollen pools accepted by seed parents
tended to be negatively related to the densities of flowering individuals
near the seed parents during winter (when the effective pollination of C.
japonica is mediated mostly by Zosterops japonica). We show that the low
density of flowering individuals may induce the expansion of the foraging
areas of Z. japonica and consequently increase the genetic diversity of
pollen pools. This spatial variation in bird pollination may induce the
mitigating effects on the C. japonica population. The comparisons between
the two study years indicate that the overall pattern of bird pollination
and the genetic effects described here, including the mitigating effects,
may be stable over time.