Data from: Population genomics and demographic sampling of the ant-plant Vachellia drepanolobium and its symbiotic ants from sites across its range in East Africa.

The association between the African ant plant, Vachellia drepanolobium,
and the ants that inhabit it has provided insight into the boundaries
between mutualism and parasitism, the response of symbioses to
environmental perturbations, and the ecology of species coexistence. We
use a landscape genomics approach at sites sampled throughout the range of
this system in Kenya to investigate the demographics and genetic structure
of the different partners in the association. We find that different
species of ant associates of V. drepanolobium show striking differences in
their spatial distribution throughout Kenya, and these differences are
only partly correlated with abiotic factors. A comparison of the
population structure of the host plant and its three obligately arboreal
ant symbionts, Crematogaster mimosae, Crematogaster nigriceps, and
Tetraponera penzigi, shows that the ants exhibit somewhat similar patterns
of structure throughout each of their respective ranges, but that this
does not correlate in any clear way with the respective genetic structure
of the populations of their host plants. A lack of evidence for local
coadaptation in this system suggests that all partners have evolved to
cope with a wide variety of biotic and abiotic conditions.