An established plant invader may still benefit from increasing genetic diversity – Insights from artificial populations in a common garden experiment

Genetic diversity and competitive ability, though extensively studied in the context of biological invasions, are still poorly understood in their relative importance, especially when shifting the perspective from individual plant’s phenotype to overall population performance. Most approaches addressing the role of genetic diversity involve the comparison of standing genetic variation in field populations combined with experimental treatments on individual plants. Composing predefined mixtures of populations to manipulate genetic diversity would be an experimental approach to test for direct effects on population performance. We determined pairwise genetic distances among 16 invasive and 22 native populations of Jacobaea vulgaris GAERTN. using single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP). Based on this information, we created each 15 de-novo populations with different levels of genetic diversity for both origins. These de-novo populations were subjected to three levels of decreasing microsite ..., , , # Data from: An established plant invader may still benefit from increasing genetic diversity – Insights from artificial populations in a common garden experiment

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.0000000dr](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.0000000dr)

## Description of the data and file structure

This set contains all raw data as well as R script relevant to the manuscript: \"An established plant invader may still benefit from increasing genetic diversity – Insights from artificial populations in a common garden experiment\" by Watermann LY, Durka W and Erfmeier A

### Files and variables

#### File: Watermann\_etal\_Popstat.R

**Description:** R script for He values, Fst, IBD

#### File: Watermann\_etal\_CommonGarden.R

**Description:** R script for common garden experiment analysis

#### File: Watermann\_etal\_SampleMaster.csv

**Description:** File with general information for all experimental units

##### Variables

* ID: unique identifier for an experimental unit in ...