Preface to the special issue: advances in the analysis of spatial genetic data.

The article discusses various issues published within the issue, including one on spatial autocorrelation statistics and the correlations among values at different spatial scales for conducting genetic inferences at multiple spatial scales, another on the relationship between classical population genetics models and individual-based landscape genetics models, as well as a report on an approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) approach for making inferences about complex demographic processes.