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

Illuminating the origin of species-genetic diversity correlations (SGDCs)
is a challenging task that has sparked a lot of interest. Genetic and
species diversity are comprised by components that respond differently to
the same ecological processes. Thus, it can be useful to partition species
and genetic diversity into their different components to infer the
mechanisms behind SGDCs. 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.