The demography of the Andean Puya hamata has been linked to fire regimes and hummingbird behaviour, which might modify the plant’s population genetic diversity. Naturally poor dispersal results in patches of genetically related plants, a pattern intensified further by burning which promotes seedling germination around parent plants. Later, when these plants flower, large patches are attractive to territorial hummingbirds which prevent visits by traplining hummingbird species, carrying pollen from likely unrelated plants. To explore this...