Impacts of flowering density on pollen dispersal and gametic diversity are scale dependent

<p>Pollen dispersal is a key evolutionary and ecological process, but the degree to which variation in the density of concurrently flowering conspecific plants (i.e., co-flowering density) shapes pollination patterns remains understudied. We monitored co-flowering density and corresponding pollination patterns of the insect-pollinated palm <em>Oenocarpus bataua</em> in northwestern Ecuador and found that the influence of co-flowering density on these patterns was scale-dependent: high neighborhood densities were associated with reductions in pollen dispersal distance and gametic diversity of progeny arrays, whereas we observed the opposite pattern at the landscape scale. In addition, neighborhood co-flowering density also impacted forward pollen dispersal kernel parameters, suggesting that low neighborhood densities encourage pollen movement and may promote gene flow and genetic diversity. Our work reveals how co-flowering density at different spatial scales influences pollen movement, which in turn informs our broader understanding of the mechanisms underlying patterns of genetic diversity and gene flow within populations of plants.</p>