The relationship between genetic diversity, function, and stability in marine foundation species

Seagrasses, corals, marsh plants, kelps, and mangroves support valuable coastal ecosystems but are threatened by environmental stressors. The need to manage these foundation taxa has spurred more than a decade of study on the relationship between genetic diversity and function or stability. We synthesized this literature base (129 relevant publications) and found more reported instances of neutral to positive relationships between genetic diversity and function than negative. However, much of the scientific understanding is based on the response of three genera and from unreplicated observational studies that correlate genetic diversity to measured response variables. When a disturbance was present, the studies often lacked controls or baseline data. Only 5.5% of the studies robustly tested for stability. These shortcomings preclude a rigorous evaluation of whether more genetically diverse foundation populations increase stability and hinder the use of genetics-based conservation strate..., To survey for literature on the topic of genetic diversity and resilience of the five coastal foundation taxa, we performed a Web of Science search in December 2021 using the following search string:
(((ALL=(Diversity or Variation) and (genet* or genotyp* or allel*) and (stability or resilience or function or epifauna or epibio* or epiphyte or productivity or production or trophic) and (seagrass* or mangrove* or submerged aquatic vegetation or coral* or saltmarsh or marsh* or kelp*)))))
The initial search returned 1,533 publications from peer-reviewed journals, which were each screened for relevance and inclusion by a team of researchers. To be included in the extraction process, publications could not be a review or a meta-analysis and had to (1) focus on one of the focal foundation species, (2) contain a metric of genetic diversity (e.g., genotypic richness, allelic diversity), and (3) include a metric of function (e.g., survival, metabolism, production, or whole-ecosystem function) o..., , # The relationship between genetic diversity, function, and stability in marine foundation species

---

These datasets contain compiled and extracted information that was used for a review focusing on the relationship between genetic diversity and resilience for coastal foundation species.

## Description of the data and file structure

**Search Information.xlsx**

This file contains information (author, article title, source, year of publication, and DOI) of 1,533 publications that were returned from a Web of Science Search conducted in December
2021\. An additional twenty publications (article numbers 1534-1554) were added after cross referencing all of the reviews/meta-analyses that were returned in the original search. The
variables are:
Code: The place in the search in which the publication was listed in the search
Authors: the listed authors on the publication
Article Title: the title of the publication
Source Title: the name of the journal in which the article was published
Year...