Data from: Partitioning genetic and species diversity refines our understanding of species-genetic diversity relationships

In this study, we applied such an approach using a high-elevation Andean wetland system, where previous evidence identified neutral processes as major determinants of the strong and positive covariation between plant species richness and AFLP genetic diversity of the common sedge Carex gayana. To tease apart putative neutral and non-neutral genetic variation of C. gayana, we identified loci putatively under selection from a dataset of 1709 SNPs produced using restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (RAD-seq).

Significant and positive relationships between local estimates of genetic and species diversities (α-SGDCs) were only found with the putatively neutral loci datasets and with species richness, confirming that neutral processes were primarily driving the correlations and that the involved processes differentially influenced local species diversity components (i.e. richness and evenness). In contrast, SGDCs based on genetic and community dissimilarities (-SGDCs) were only significant with the putative non-neutral datasets.

This suggests that selective processes influencing C. gayana genetic diversity were involved in the detected correlations. Together, our results demonstrate that analyzing distinct components of genetic and species diversity simultaneously is useful to determine the mechanisms behind species-genetic diversity relationships.

Usage notes

Carex guyana SNP dataset, Andean wetland plant community dataset, and environmental data for species genetic diversity correlation study This data folder includes the five filtered SNP datasets for the plant species, Carex guyana, a common sedge in high elevation Andes wetlands (final_partitioned_SNPdatasets). Details regading the partitioned neutral and adaptive datasets can be found in the accompanying Ecology and Evolution 2018 paper.

The folder also contains the plant community datasets (DatosPlantsCommunity_modified) used to contrast plant species and Carex guyana genetic diversity in the species genetic diversity correlation study, as well as the environmental data (EnvData). CarexguyanaSGDC2018_data.zip