Data from: The carnivorous plant described as Sarracenia alata contains two cryptic species

Modern methods for species delimitation provide biologists with the power
to detect cryptic diversity in nearly any system. To illustrate the
application of such methods, we collected data (21 sequence loci) from a
carnivorous plant in southeastern North America and applied several
recently developed methods (Gaussian clustering, Structurama, BPP,
spedeSTEM). The pale pitcher plant Sarracenia alata inhabits the
southeastern USA along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
Sarracenia alata populations are separated by the Mississippi River and
Atchafalaya Basin, a known biogeographical barrier in this region, but the
cohesiveness of S. alata as currently classified has not been tested
rigorously. Multiple analytical approaches (including allelic clustering
and species trees methods) suggest that S. alata comprises two cryptic
lineages that correspond to the eastern and western portions of the
plant's distribution. That such clear genetic evidence for cryptic
diversity exists within S. alata and is in conflict with other sources of
data (e.g. morphology, environmental differentiation) illustrates a
conundrum faced by those who investigate species boundaries: genetic data
are often the first type of data to accumulate evidence of
differentiation, but most existing taxonomic treatments are based on
nongenetic data. Our results suggest that S. alata as currently described
contains two cryptic species, and we recommend the elevation of the
western populations to species status.