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.

植物物种的遗传种群结构（genetic population structure）是其生活史、生态偏好、在生态系统中的位置以及历史因素共同复杂作用的产物。正因如此，目前存在诸多可量化物种遗传结构不同维度的统计方法。然而，学界对这些方法之间的相互关联，以及它们与物种生态学和生活史的关联尚不清楚。本研究依托涵盖27个高山物种的IntraBioDiv AFLP（扩增片段长度多态性）数据集，计算了8项遗传汇总统计量（genetic summary statistics），并将其与6项生态及生活史性状集合开展联合相关性分析。研究发现，所计算的汇总统计量间存在大量冗余，且与物种性状矩阵存在显著关联。在多变量分析中，27个物种的种群结构呈现出两大核心维度：第一维度与物种的扩散能力相关，第二维度则大概率与物种在冰期后对阿尔卑斯山脉的拓殖（postglacial recolonisation）有关。此外，本研究还发现，部分汇总统计量——尤其是曼特尔r统计量（Mantel's r）与乔斯特D统计量（Jost's D）——的表现与理论预期不符。因此，我们建议在基于此类统计量得出过于绝对的结论时保持审慎。