bioRxiv · 2026-06-06
Red campion wildflowers maintain healthy genetic connections across human-altered landscapes, with pollen traveling both short distances and surprisingly far from outside local populations — suggesting this common plant is more resilient to habitat fragmentation than expected.
Sampling 1,005 individuals across 29 populations found no reduction in genetic diversity linked to population size or degree of human land-use change
Paternity analysis of 4,800 offspring showed pollen dispersal is mostly short-range (under 10 m neighborhoods) but with substantial long-distance immigration from outside local populations
Genetic differentiation among populations followed an isolation-by-distance pattern with high admixture, and landscape composition did not explain differences — suggesting gene flow is resilient to anthropogenic habitat alteration
