Dispersal potential and population genetic structure in the marine intertidal of the eastern North Pacific

Population genetic theory and empirical comparisons of sister and sympatric marine species show that life history traits related to dispersal, such as pelagic duration (PD), should affect the frequency and spatial scale of migration, and thus influence population genetic structure. However, recent global analyses have concluded that PD is poorly correlated with marine population genetic structure. Here, we identify and compare genetic structure between four pairs of synchronously diverging co-distributed (SDC) species, drawn from standardized analyses of eight eastern North Pacific rocky intertidal invertebrates and one macrophyte. We test two hypotheses: H0, that species with similar dispersal potential have similar population genetic structure, and H1, that species with higher dispersal potential have lower population genetic differentiation. We find that differences in census population size (Nc), fecundity (F), and PD are sufficient to explain measured differences in population genetic structure (ϕST,...