Data from: Is local selection so widespread in river organisms? Fractal geometry of river networks leads to high bias in outlier detection

Identifying local adaptation is crucial in conservation biology in order
to define ecotypes and establish management guidelines. Local adaptation
is often inferred from the detection of loci showing a high
differentiation between populations, the so-called FST outliers. Methods
of detection of loci under selection are reputed to be robust in most
spatial population models. However, using simulations we showed that FST
outlier tests provided a high rate of false positives (up to 60%) in
fractal environments such as river networks. Surprisingly, the number of
sampled demes was correlated with parameters of population genetic
structure, such as the variance of FSTs, and hence strongly influenced the
rate of outliers. This unappreciated property of river networks therefore
needs to be accounted for in genetic studies on adaptation and
conservation of river organisms.