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，是其生活史、生态偏好、在生态系统中的所处位置以及历史因素共同复杂作用的产物。目前已发展出多种不同的统计方法，用于解析物种遗传结构的不同方面。然而，学界对这些方法之间的内在关联，以及它们与物种生态特征和生活史的对应关系仍知之甚少。本研究采用源自27种阿尔卑斯高海拔物种的IntraBioDiv AFLP数据集，计算得到8项遗传汇总统计量，并将其与6项生态及生活史特征开展联合关联分析。研究发现，所计算的汇总统计量间存在大量冗余，且与物种特征矩阵存在显著关联。在多变量分析中，27个物种的种群结构可归纳为两个核心维度：第一维度与物种的扩散能力相关，第二维度则大概率对应物种冰期后对阿尔卑斯山区的再定植过程。此外，本研究还观察到，部分汇总统计量——尤以曼特尔r值（Mantel’s r）和约斯特D值（Jost’s D）最为典型——其表现与理论预期存在偏差。因此，我们建议在基于此类统计量得出强确定性结论时需保持审慎。