Do linear landscape elements in farmland act as biological corridors for pollen dispersal?

作者：Anja Van Geert, Fabienne Van Rossum, Ludwig Triest · 发表于：Journal of Ecology · 年份：2009 · DOI：10.1111/j.1365-2745.2009.01600.x · 被引用次数：146 · 研究领域：Plant and animal studies、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Lichen and fungal ecology

Summary 1. Habitat fragmentation in agricultural landscapes has reduced the population sizes of many plant species while increasing their spatial isolation. Restoration or maintenance of the connectivity by gene flow between the fragmented patches may be determinant to sustaining viable populations, especially for insect‐pollinated species. Functional biological corridors facilitating pollen flow between remnants in a human‐dominated matrix might achieve this. 2. Dye dispersal was investigated for the extremely fragmented insect‐pollinated herb Primula vulgaris, using fluorescent dye particles as pollen analogues, in a study site comprising 20 populations, of which 13 pairs were physically connected by a linear landscape elements (LLEs, ditches), and 11 pairs were not connected by an LLE. The dye deposition events were used to fit a model of pollen dispersal at the landscape level. We examined whether existing LLEs in the intensively used agricultural landscape act as functional corridors for pollen dispersal. The effects of LLE length and size and plant density of the recipient population on the dispersal patterns were tested. 3. Dye dispersal showed a leptokurtic decay distribution, with 80% of the dye transfers occurring at less than 85.1 m, and a maximal distance of 1010.8 m. The mean distance travelled by fluorescent dye particles based on the dye dispersal model was δ = 87 m. 4. Dye dispersal between populations was found to be significantly higher when populations were...