Bee movement across heterogeneous tropical forests: multi-paternal genetic analyses reveal the importance of neighborhood composition for pollen-mediated gene flow

Animal pollination is critical for maintaining the reproduction and genetic diversity of many plant species, especially those in tropical ecosystems. Despite the threat to pollination posed by tropical deforestation, it remains an understudied process. In particular, little is known about these dynamics in multi-paternal, successional plant species whose fruits can contain substantial genetic diversity. Given the importance of successional plants in reforestation, quantifying the factors that impact their reproduction is essential for understanding plant gene flow in the context of global change. In this study, we investigated pollen-mediated gene flow at the multi-paternal fruit level to quantify how tropical pollinators navigate and mediate gene flow in altered forests. Utilizing microsatellite genotyping and paternity analyses, we revealed that distinct plant neighborhood and individual factors drive pollen dispersal at the intra-fruit scale. Variance in pollen dispersal distances wa...