Data from: Adaptive and neutral markers both show continent-wide population structure of mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae)

Assessments of population genetic structure and demographic history have traditionally been based on neutral markers while explicitly excluding adaptive markers. In this study, we compared the utility of putatively adaptive and neutral single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for inferring mountain pine beetle population structure across its geographic range. Both adaptive and neutral SNPs, and their combination, allowed range-wide structure to be distinguished and delimited a population that has recently undergone range expansion across northern British Columbia and Alberta. Using an equal number of both adaptive and neutral SNPs revealed that adaptive SNPs resulted in a stronger correlation between sampled populations and inferred clustering. Our results suggest that adaptive SNPs should not be excluded prior to analysis from neutral SNPs as a combination of both marker sets resulted in better resolution of genetic differentiation between populations than either marker set alone. These results demonstrate the utility of adaptive loci for resolving population genetic structure in a nonmodel organism.传统上，种群遗传结构与种群历史的评估多基于中性标记（neutral markers），且会明确排除适应性标记（adaptive markers）。本研究中，我们对比了推定适应性与中性单核苷酸多态性（single-nucleotide polymorphisms, SNPs）在推断山松甲虫整个地理分布范围内种群结构的应用效能。无论是适应性SNPs、中性SNPs，还是二者的组合，均能区分全分布区的种群结构，并界定出近期在不列颠哥伦比亚省北部与阿尔伯塔省范围内经历种群扩张的种群。使用等量的适应性与中性SNPs时发现，适应性SNPs可使采样种群与推断聚类结果间的相关性更强。我们的研究结果表明，在分析前不应将适应性标记与中性标记区分排除，因为两类标记的组合相较于单独使用任一标记集，能更清晰地解析种群间的遗传分化。这些结果证实了适应性位点在解析非模式生物种群遗传结构方面的应用价值。