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Abstract Understanding patterns of diversity across macro (e.g. species‐level) and micro (e.g. molecular‐level) scales can shed light on community function and stability by elucidating the abiotic and biotic drivers of diversity within ecological communities. We examined the relationships among taxonomic and genetic metrics of diversity in freshwater mussels (Bivalvia: Unionidae), an ecologically important and species‐rich group in the southeastern United States. Using quantitative community surveys and reduced‐representation genome sequencing across 22 sites in seven rivers and two river basins, we surveyed 68 mussel species and sequenced 23 of these species to characterize intrapopulation genetic variation. We tested for the presence of species diversity–abundance correlations (i.e. the more‐individuals hypothesis, MIH), species‐genetic diversity correlations (SGDCs) and abundance‐genetic diversity correlations (AGDCs) across all sites to evaluate relationships between different metrics of diversity. Sites with greater cumulative multispecies density (a standardized metric of abundance) had a greater number of species, consistent with the MIH hypothesis. Intrapopulation genetic diversity was strongly associated with the density of most species, indicating the presence of AGDCs. However, there was no consistent evidence for SGDCs. Although sites with greater overall densities of mussels had greater species richness, sites with higher genetic diversity did not always exhibit positive correlations with species richness, suggesting that there are spatial and evolutionary scales at which the processes influencing community‐level diversity and intraspecific diversity differ. Our work reveals the importance of local abundance as indicator (and possibly a driver) of intrapopulation genetic diversity. 

Abstract AimLineage fusion (merging of two or more populations of a species resulting in a single panmictic group) is a special case of secondary contact. It has the potential to counteract diversification and speciation, or to facilitate it through creation of novel genotypes. Understanding the prevalence of lineage fusion in nature requires reliable detection of it, such that efficient summary statistics are needed. Here, we report on simulations that characterized the initial intensity and subsequent decay of signatures of past fusion for 17 summary statistics applicable to DNA sequence haplotype data. LocationGlobal. TaxaDiploid out‐crossing species. MethodsWe considered a range of scenarios that could reveal the impacts of different combinations of read length versus number of loci (arrangement of DNA sequence data), and whether or not pre‐fusion populations experienced bottlenecks coinciding with their divergence (historical context of fusion). Post‐fusion gene pools were sampled along 10 successive time points representing increasing lag times following merging of sister populations, and summary statistic values were recalculated at each. ResultsMany summary statistics were able to detect signatures of complete merging of populations after a sampling lag time of 1.5N_egenerations, but the most informative ones included two neutrality tests and four diversity metrics, withZ_nS(a linkage disequilibrium‐based neutrality test) being particularly powerful. Correlation was relatively low among the two neutrality tests and two of the diversity metrics. There were clear benefits of many short (200‐bp × 200) loci over a handful of long (4‐kb × 10) loci. Also, only the latter genetic dataset type showed impacts of bottlenecks during divergence upon the number of informative summary statistics. Main conclusionsThis work contributes to identifying cases of lineage fusion, and advances phylogeography by enabling more nuanced reconstructions of how individual species, or multiple members of an ecological community, responded to past environmental change.