DOI: 10.5061/dryad.676c7g5
title: Data from: Spatial analyses of two color polymorphisms in an alpine grasshopper reveal a role of small‐scale heterogeneity

description: Discrete color polymorphisms represent a fascinating aspect of
 intraspecific diversity. Color morph ratios often vary clinally, but in
 some cases, there are no marked clines and mixes of different morphs occur
 at appreciable frequencies in most populations. This poses the questions
 of how polymorphisms are maintained. We here study the spatial and
 temporal distribution of a very conspicuous color polymorphism in the
 club‐legged grasshopper Gomphocerus sibiricus. The species occurs in a
 green and a nongreen (predominately brown) morph, a green–brown
 polymorphism that is common among Orthopteran insects. We sampled color
 morph ratios at 42 sites across the alpine range of the species and
 related color morph ratios to local habitat parameters and climatic
 conditions. Green morphs occurred in both sexes, and their morph ratios
 were highly correlated among sites, suggesting shared control of the
 polymorphism in females and males. We found that in at least 40 of 42
 sites green and brown morphs co‐occurred with proportions of green ranging
 from 0% to 70% with significant spatial heterogeneity. The proportion of
 green individuals tended to increase with decreasing summer and winter
 precipitations. Nongreen individuals can be further distinguished into
 brown and pied individuals, and again, this polymorphism is shared with
 other grasshopper species. We found pied individuals at all sites with
 proportions ranging from 3% to 75%, with slight, but significant variation
 between years. Pied morphs show a clinal increase in frequency from east
 to west and decreased with altitude and lower temperatures and were more
 common on grazed sites. The results suggest that both small‐scale and
 large‐scale spatial heterogeneity affects color morph ratios. The almost
 universal co‐occurrence of all three color morphs argues against strong
 effects of genetic drift. Instead, the data suggest that small‐scale
 migration–selection balance and/or local balancing selection maintain
 populations polymorphic.
description: Gsibiricus_SitesThe tab separated file contains sampling site information. REFERENCES: (1) Karger, D.N., Conrad, O., Böhner, J., Kawohl, T., Kreft, H., Soria-Auza, R.W., Zimmermann, N.E., Linder, H.P. & Kessler, M. (2017) Climatologies at high resolution for the earth’s land surface areas. Scientific Data 4, 170122. (2) Karger, D.N., Conrad, O., Böhner, J., Kawohl, T., Kreft, H., Soria-Auza, R.W., Zimmermann, N.E., Linder, H.P., Kessler, M. (2017) Data from: Climatologies at high resolution for the earth’s land surface areas. Dryad Digital Repository. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.kd1d4Gsibiricus_LargescaleAnalysisThe tab separated file contains information about all individuals the we used for the large-scale analysis. The data set includes only one sample of the six locations (site Albitzen I/Heiligenblut) that we sampled in two consecutive years in order to avoid giving undue weight on the single site with a large sample size.Gsibiricus_SpatialTemporalRepeatabilityThe tab separated file contains information about the individuals that we caught at the six locations (site Albitzen I/Heilgenblut) in two consecutive years in order to estimate the local spatial and temporal repeatability of colour morph ratios.