Variation in pollen dispersal between years with different pollination conditions in a tropical emergent tree.

We examined differences in pollen dispersal efficiency between 2 years in terms of both spatial dispersal range and genetic relatedness of pollen in a tropical emergent tree, Dipterocarpus tempehes. The species was pollinated by the giant honeybee (Apis dorsata) in a year of intensive community-level mass-flowering or general flowering (1996), but by several species of moths in a year of less-intensive general flowering (1998). We carried out paternity analysis based on six DNA microsatellite markers on a total of 277 mature trees forming four spatially distinct subpopulations in a 70 ha area, and 147 and 188 2-year-old seedlings originating from seeds produced in 1996 and 1998 (cohorts 96 and 98, respectively). Outcrossing rates (0.93 and 0.96 for cohorts 96 and 98, respectively) did not differ between years. Mean dispersal distances (222 and 192 m) were not significantly different between the 2 years but marginally more biased to long distance in 1996. The mean relatedness among cross-pollinated seedlings sharing the same mothers in cohort 96 was lower than that in cohort 98. This can be attributed to the two facts that the proportion of intersubpopulations pollen flow among cross-pollination events was marginally higher in cohort 96 (44%) than in cohort 98 (33%), and that mature trees within the same subpopulations are genetically more related to each other than those between different subpopulations. We conclude that D. tempehes maintained effective pollen dispersal in terms of outcrossing rate and pollen dispersal distance in spite of the large difference in foraging characteristics between two types of pollinators. In terms of pollen relatedness, however, a slight difference was suggested between years in the level of biparental inbreeding.