Incorporating pollinator movement into connectivity models predicts pollen-mediated gene flow and highlights the importance of regenerating forests in tropical landscapes

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Abstract
Context: Pollen-mediated gene flow is crucial for ecological and evolutionary processes and understanding its disruption by anthropogenic disturbances is essential for conservation. Objectives: In this study, we developed landscape connectivity metrics that incorporated hummingbird movement behaviour to assess how structural (amount and configuration) and functional (species-specific behavioural response) landscape connectivity influence pollen-mediated gene flow in a tropical plant species. Methods: We adapted the incidence function model (IFM) to develop a set of functional landscape connectivity metrics that integrated field estimates of pollinator movement behaviour. We evaluated whether these metrics outperform structural landscape connectivity metrics for explaining contemporary pollen-mediated gene flow. Results: The performance of landscape connectivity metrics as predictors of contemporary pollen-mediated gene flow is scale dependent. At the focal patch scale, pollen-mediated gene flow was better predicted by structural connectivity metrics, specifically the area of contiguous mature forest. At the local landscape scale, pollen-mediated gene flow was better predicted by functional connectivity metrics that accounted for hummingbird movement, including gap-crossing probabilities. We found that including regenerating forests and narrow forest elements better explained pollen-mediated gene flow than a focus solely on mature forest. Conclusions: By integrating hummingbird movement behaviour, we offer a more realistic and nuanced understanding of how landscapes influence pollen-mediated gene flow. We underscore the importance of accounting for pollinator movement behaviour in conservation strategies that aim to preserve pollen-mediated gene flow, and demonstrate that forest regeneration is critical for maintaining functional landscape connectivity in tropical fragmented landscapes.
Funding Information
  • Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Create Program ‘ADVENT/ENVIRO’)
  • National Science Foundation (NSF-DEB-1457837)
  • National Science Foundation (NSF-DEB-1050594)
  • National Science Foundatin (NSF-DEB-1457837)
  • Lund University

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