Data from: Ecology and life history affect different aspects of the population structure of 27 high-alpine plants

A plant species' genetic population structure is the result of a
complex combination of its life history, ecological preferences, position
in the ecosystem, and historical factors. As a result, many different
statistical methods exist that measure different aspects of species’
genetic structure. However, little is known about how these methods are
interrelated and how they are related to a species’ ecology and life
history. In this study, we used the IntraBioDiv AFLP-dataset from 27
high-alpine species to calculate eight genetic summary statistics that we
jointly correlate to a set of six ecological and life-history traits. We
found that there is a large amount of redundancy among the calculated
summary statistics and that there is a significant association with the
matrix of species traits. In a multivariate analysis, two main aspects of
population structure were visible among the 27 species. The first aspect
is related to the species’ dispersal capacities and the second is most
likely related to the species’ postglacial recolonisation of the Alps.
Furthermore, we found that some summary statistics, most importantly
Mantel’s r and Jost’s D, show different behaviour than expected based on
theory. We therefore advise caution in drawing too strong conclusions from
these statistics.