Local populations are more likely to produce seeds, and therefore potential colonists, when they occur in clusters of populations.
As we increase the threshold we observe how the different linked clusters of populations become larger and merge.
In contrast, the coniferous forests is peculiar, with significant small-scale clustering of at distances up to 120 km and significant large-scale repulsion of clusters of populations >120 km.
All these clusters of populations and linguistic affiliations resemble those in previous phylogenetic analysis.
A MCMC based program STRUCTURE [6] has been widely used for assigning individuals to clusters of populations.
The three main clusters of populations obtained are: (1) the populations living in Korea, Japan and the northwestern of China, (2) the Han populations in different regions, and (3) the populations living in Vietnam, Indonesia and the southeastern of China.
We apply a distinct approach to evaluating species resolution here, by assessing whether clusters of populations that correspond to monophyletic species in a floristic sample are well supported (see [11] for a somewhat similar approach).
Multidimensional scaling analysis of pairwise population FST genetic distances revealed three well separated clusters of populations (Figure 1): a clear separation of Northwest Africans from European populations, and of Southern from Northern European populations in agreement with previous observations [30], [33].
This prior model gives greater probability to a partition with few clusters of populations.
The executed P-values give the probability of specific populations separating into one or more clusters of populations.
