Data from: Environmental heterogeneity and not vicariant biogeographic barriers generate community wide population structure in desert adapted snakes
Cite this dataset
Myers, Edward A. et al. (2019). Data from: Environmental heterogeneity and not vicariant biogeographic barriers generate community wide population structure in desert adapted snakes [Dataset]. Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2172qg4
Abstract
Genetic structure can be influenced by local adaptation to environmental heterogeneity and biogeographic barriers, resulting in discrete population clusters. Geographic distance among populations, however, can result in continuous clines of genetic divergence that appear as structured populations. Here we evaluate the relevant importance of these three factors over a landscape characterized by environmental heterogeneity and the presence of a hypothesized biogeographic barrier in producing population genetic structure within 13 codistributed snake species using a genomic dataset. We demonstrate that geographic distance and environmental heterogeneity across western North America contribute to population genomic divergence. Surprisingly, landscape features long thought to contribute to biogeographic barriers play little role in divergence community wide. Our results suggest that isolation by environment is the most important contributor to genomic divergence. Furthermore, we show that models of population clustering that incorporate spatial information consistently outperform nonspatial models, demonstrating the importance of considering geographic distances in population clustering. We argue that environmental and geographic distances as drivers of community-wide divergence should be explored before assuming the role of biogeographic barriers.
Usage notes
Funding
National Science Foundation, Award: US NSF grants DEB 1500448; CNS-0855217; CNS-0958379
Location
North American deserts