Dispersal is one of the most important but least understood processes in plant ecology and evolutionary biology. Dispersal of seeds maintains and establishes populations, and pollen and seed dispersal are responsible for gene flow within and among populations. Traditional views of dispersal and gene flow assume models that are governed solely by geographic distance and do not account for variation in dispersal vector behavior in response to heterogenous landscapes. Landscape genetics integrates population genetics with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to evaluate the effects of landscape features on gene flow patterns (effective dispersal). Surprisingly, relatively few landscape genetic studies have been conducted on plants. Plants present advantages because their populations are stationary, allowing more reliable estimates of the effects of landscape features on effective dispersal rates. On the other hand, plant dispersal is intrinsically complex because it depends on the habitat preferences of the plant and its pollen and seed dispersal vectors. We discuss strategies to assess the separate contributions of pollen and seed movement to effective dispersal and to delineate the effects of plant habitat quality from those of landscape features that affect vector behavior. Preliminary analyses of seed dispersal for three species indicate that isolation by landscape resistance is a better predictor of the rates and patterns of dispersal than geographic distance. Rates of effective dispersal are lower in areas of high plant habitat quality, which may be due to the effects of the shape of the dispersal kernel or to movement behaviors of biotic vectors. Landscape genetic studies in plants have the potential to provide novel insights into the process of gene flow among populations and to improve our understanding of the behavior of biotic and abiotic dispersal vectors in response to heterogeneous landscapes.

传播是植物生态学和进化生物学中最重要但最不为人所知的过程之一。种子的传播维持和建立种群，而花粉和种子的传播负责种群内部和种群之间的基因流动。散布和基因流的传统观点假设模型仅由地理距离控制，并且不考虑散布矢量行为对异质景观的反应的变化。景观遗传学将种群遗传学与地理信息系统 (GIS) 相结合，以评估景观特征对基因流动模式（有效扩散）的影响。令人惊讶的是，对植物进行的景观遗传研究相对较少。植物具有优势，因为它们的种群是固定的，允许更可靠地估计景观特征对有效扩散率的影响。另一方面，植物传播本质上是复杂的，因为它取决于植物的栖息地偏好及其花粉和种子传播媒介。我们讨论了评估花粉和种子运动对有效传播的单独贡献的策略，并将植物栖息地质量的影响与影响媒介行为的景观特征的影响区分开来。对三个物种的种子传播的初步分析表明，与地理距离相比，通过景观抗性隔离是传播速率和模式的更好预测指标。在植物栖息地质量高的地区，有效传播率较低，这可能是由于分散核的形状或生物载体的运动行为的影响。植物景观遗传研究有可能为种群之间的基因流动过程提供新的见解，并提高我们对生物和非生物传播载体对异质景观的反应的理解。