Genetic diversity shapes the evolutionary potential of plant populations. For outcrossing plants, genetic diversity is influenced by effective population size and by dispersal, first of paternal gametes through pollen, and then of paternal and maternal gametes through seeds. Forest loss often reduces genetic diversity, but the degree to which it differentially impacts the paternal and maternal contributions to genetic diversity and the spatial scale at which these impacts are most pronounced are poorly understood. To address these questions, we genotyped 504 seedlings of the animal-dispersed palm Oenocarpus bataua collected from 29 widely distributed sites across Ecuador and decomposed the contribution of paternal and maternal gametes to overall genetic diversity. The amount of forest cover at a landscape scale (>10 km radius) had an equally significant positive association with both male and female gametic diversity. In addition, there was a significant positive association between forest cover and effective population size. Stronger fine-scale spatial genetic structure for female versus male gametes was observed at sites with low forest cover, but this did not scale up to differences in male versus female gametic diversity. These findings show that reductions in forest cover at spatial scales much larger than those typically evaluated in ecological studies lead to significant, and equivalent, decreases of diversity in both male and female gametes, and that this association between landscape level forest loss and genetic diversity may be driven directly by reductions in effective population size of O. bataua, rather than by indirect disruptions to local dispersal processes.

中文翻译：

---

景观尺度的森林覆盖增加了棕榈幼苗的雄性和雌性配子多样性

遗传多样性塑造了植物种群的进化潜力。对于异交植物，遗传多样性受有效种群大小和扩散的影响，首先是父配子通过花粉，然后是父配子和母配子通过种子。森林丧失通常会降低遗传多样性，但人们对它对父系和母系对遗传多样性的贡献以及这些影响最显着的空间尺度的不同影响程度知之甚少。为了解决这些问题，我们对 504 株动物分散棕榈Oenocarpus bataua幼苗进行了基因分型从厄瓜多尔的 29 个广泛分布的地点收集，并分解了父系和母系配子对整体遗传多样性的贡献。景观尺度（> 10 公里半径）的森林覆盖量与雄性和雌性配子多样性具有同样显着的正相关。此外，森林覆盖率与有效种群规模之间存在显着的正相关。在森林覆盖率低的地点观察到雌性和雄性配子的更精细的空间遗传结构，但这并没有扩大到雄性和雌性配子多样性的差异。这些发现表明，在比生态研究中通常评估的空间尺度上森林覆盖减少的空间尺度上，会导致雄性和雌性配子的多样性显着减少，并且等效地减少，O. bataua，而不是通过对本地传播过程的间接破坏。