Data from: Genetic diversity-area relationships across bird species

The genetic diversity-area relationship (GAR), compared to the extensively
explored species-area relationship (SAR), remains poorly recognized
despite the importance of understanding it for the development and
application of biodiversity theory. It has been hypothesized that
maintaining genetic diversity within a population is mechanistically
similar to maintaining species diversity within a community, implying that
GAR trajectories should mathematically behave as SAR ones. Here we test
this prediction by fitting microsatellite heterozygosity and allelic
richness in relation to distribution range size across bird species
against eight well-known SAR models. The Monod model best described the
data of resident and migratory species combined, and especially the data
of resident species only, showing that with increasing range size, genetic
diversity across species rapidly increased up to a certain level and then
tended towards an asymptote. None of the candidate models provided an
adequate fit for the data of migratory species, likely because their
breeding range size mostly is large in that a GAR curve has become flat.
Our work takes the first step towards formulating GARs and applying them
to predicting the effect of habitat fragmentation on genetic diversity.