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. 1992 Oct;132(2):583–589. doi: 10.1093/genetics/132.2.583

Estimation of Levels of Gene Flow from DNA Sequence Data

R R Hudson 1, M Slatkin 1, W P Maddison 1
PMCID: PMC1205159  PMID: 1427045

Abstract

We compare the utility of two methods for estimating the average levels of gene flow from DNA sequence data. One method is based on estimating F(ST) from frequencies at polymorphic sites, treating each site as a separate locus. The other method is based on computing the minimum number of migration events consistent with the gene tree inferred from their sequences. We compared the performance of these two methods on data that were generated by a computer simulation program that assumed the infinite sites model of mutation and that assumed an island model of migration. We found that in general when there is no recombination, the cladistic method performed better than F(ST) while the reverse was true for rates of recombination similar to those found in eukaryotic nuclear genes, although F(ST) performed better for all recombination rates for very low levels of migration (Nm = 0.1).

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Selected References

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