Empirical Tests of the Reliability of Phylogenetic Trees Constructed With Microsatellite DNA

Abstract

Microsatellite DNA loci or short tandem repeats (STRs) are abundant in eukaryotic genomes and are often used for constructing phylogenetic trees of closely related populations or species. These phylogenetic trees are usually constructed by using some genetic distance measure based on allele frequency data, and there are many distance measures that have been proposed for this purpose. In the past the efficiencies of these distance measures in constructing phylogenetic trees have been studied mathematically or by computer simulations. Recently, however, allele frequencies of 783 STR loci have been compiled from various human populations. We have therefore used these empirical data to investigate the relative efficiencies of different distance measures in constructing phylogenetic trees. The results showed that (1) the probability of obtaining the correct branching pattern of a tree (P_C) is generally highest for D_A distance; (2) F_ST*, standard genetic distance (D_S), and give similar P_C-values, F_ST* being slightly better than the other two; and (3) (δμ)² shows P_C-values much lower than the other distance measures. To have reasonably high P_C-values for trees similar to ours, at least 30 loci with a minimum of 15 individuals are required when D_A distance is used.

BECAUSE microsatellite DNA loci or short tandem repeat (STR) loci are highly polymorphic, they are very useful for studying the evolutionary relationships of closely related populations or species. However, a number of statistical problems should be solved before this approach can be used effectively. Some of the major problems are: (1) What kind of distance measures should be used for constructing phylogenetic trees?, (2) How many loci should be used?, and (3) How many individuals per locus should be used? Some of these problems have been studied theoretically or by computer simulation with specific mathematical models (e.g., Zhivotovsky and Feldman 1995; Takezaki and Nei 1996; Zhivotovsky et al. 2001; Kalinowski 2002). However, the assumptions for constructing mathematical models are not always realistic, and for this reason these studies may give wrong conclusions. Fortunately, a large number of data about STR loci have recently been accumulated from various human populations (Ramachandran et al. 2005; Rosenberg et al. 2005). We have therefore decided to study the above problems using these empirical data.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Microsatellite data:

Genotypic data of 783 STR loci of 1027 individuals from 53 populations that were used by Ramachandran et al. (2005) for studying isolation by distance were downloaded from http://rosenberglab.bioinformatics.med.umich.edu/data/ramachandranEtAl2005/combinedmicrosats-1027.stru. Allele frequencies were computed by excluding missing data. Information regarding the STR loci such as the unit of nucleotide repeats and genomic locations of STR loci was obtained from http://rosenberglab.bioinformatics.med.umich.edu/data/rosenbergEtAl2002/diversityloci.txt and by internet search including databases of Marshfield (http://marshfieldclinic.org/research/pages/index.aspx) and UniSTS at NCBI (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/). These data were essentially the same as the microsatellite data used by Rosenberg et al. (2005), although Rosenberg et al.'s data included insertion/deletion polymorphism data and data from the Surui population in Brazil. In our data set of 783 STR loci, there were 45 dinucleotide, 175 trinucleotide, 555 tetranucleotide, and 8 pentanucleotide repeat loci. Examining 1056 individuals from 52 populations, Zhivotovsky et al. (2003) studied the extent of variation in 377 STR loci, of which 45 were dinucleotide, 58 were trinucleotide, and 274 were tetranucleotide repeat loci. The same data set was also used by Rosenberg et al. (2002). The dinucleotide repeat loci used by Zhivotovsky et al. (2003) were the same as those in this study, and their trinucleotide and tetranucleotide repeat loci were a subset of the loci used in this study.

Genomic locations were available for ∼300 loci, but only a few pairs of loci were within a genomic distance of 1 Mbp. Therefore, the extent of linkage disequilibrium between the loci seems to be negligible.

The heterozygosity for a locus was calculated by , where is the frequency of the ith allele in the sample, and n is the number of diploid individuals examined at the locus. In this study null alleles were excluded when allele frequencies were computed. Therefore, the actual 2n value could be smaller than two times the number of individuals examined. The average heterozygosity (H) for r loci was estimated by , whereas the sampling variance of H is computed by , where (Nei 1987). The expected value of heterozygosity [E(H)] in an equilibrium population is for the infinite-allele model (IAM) (Kimura and Crow 1964) and for the stepwise mutation model (SMM) (Ohta and Kimura 1973), where M = 4Nv, and N and v are the effective population size and mutation rate, respectively. We also examined the distribution of the average of the number (n_a) of alleles per locus within populations.

Genetic distance measures:

We examined the statistical properties of several genetic distance measures that are often used in actual data analysis. Most of them were originally developed for classical genetic markers such as blood group and isozyme loci that approximately follow the IAM, in which a new allele is always created by mutation. The D_A distance (Nei et al. 1983) is defined as

where x_ij and y_ij are the frequencies of the ith allele at the jth locus in populations X and Y, respectively, and m_j is the number of alleles at the jth locus. Cavalli-Sforza and Edwards (1967) proposed the chord distance (D_C) defined by

In the computer simulation by Takezaki and Nei (1996), the D_A and D_C distances showed the highest probabilities of obtaining the correct tree. However, since D_A performed slightly better than D_C in constructing phylogenetic trees, we used only D_A in this study.

Nei's (1972) standard genetic distance (D_S) is given by

where and are the average homozygosities over the loci for populations X and Y, respectively, and . Under the IAM with mutation–drift balance, E[D_S], the expectation of D_S, is given by 2vt, where v is a mutation rate per locus per generation and t is the time measured in generations after the two populations diverged. Therefore, D_S is expected to increase linearly with time under the IAM.

The F_ST* distance proposed by Latter (1972) is as follows:

(Latter 1972; Reynolds et al. 1983) was also proposed as a distance measure. However, our previous studies showed that the probabilities of obtaining correct tree topologies were very similar for D_L and F_ST* or slightly lower for D_L than for F_ST*. Therefore, D_L is not considered in this study. In this study we examine the following distance measure related to F_ST*, which was not included in our previous computer simulation:

F_ST in the above formula is equivalent to Nei's (1973) G_ST (Slatkin 1995), and G_ST can be estimated by F_ST* in the case of two populations. Therefore, F_ST′ was computed by F_ST*/(1 − F_ST*) in this study. F_ST′ was originally proposed as a measure of isolation by distance (Slatkin 1993; Rousset 1997). It was shown to increase approximately linearly with time after the two populations separated for the case of low mutation rate (Slatkin 1995).

Some distance measures were developed specifically for STR loci in which the number of short nucleotide repeats was assumed to change following the SMM. Distance measure (δμ)² was developed for this model in which the number of nucleotide repeats (i) changes to i − 1 or i + 1 with an equal probability (Goldstein et al. 1995). It is defined by

where and are the average repeat numbers of alleles at the jth locus, and x_ij and y_ij are the frequencies of the allele with repeat number (allele size) i at the jth locus in populations X and Y, respectively. Under the SMM with mutation–drift balance, the expected value of (δμ)² is 2vt, where v is a mutation rate per locus per generation and t is the time measured in generations after the two populations diverged. Therefore, (δμ)² is expected to increase linearly with time under the SMM.

Measures of the efficiency of phylogenetic construction:

In this study, phylogenetic trees were constructed by the neighbor-joining method (Saitou and Nei 1987) with the genetic distance measures considered above. We examined the efficiencies of phylogenetic construction of different genetic distance measures by the nonparametric bootstrap approach. In this approach a certain number of loci (10, 20, 30, 50, 100, 300, 500, and 700) were chosen at random with replacement from the actual STR data set and neighbor-joining trees were constructed with the different distance measures mentioned above. In the examination of the effect of sample size on the efficiency of phylogenic construction, 5, 10, 15, 20, or 25 individuals were chosen at each locus, but in the other cases all the individuals were used. To examine the accuracy of a constructed tree, we need a true tree or a model tree with which the topology of the tree constructed can be compared. In the case of computer simulation, this model tree can be predetermined as in the case of Takezaki and Nei's (1996) study. In a study with empirical data there is no way to know the true tree that would reflect the historical relationship of the populations used. We have therefore decided to use a crude model tree based on the biogeographical distribution of populations and the consensus tree constructed by using all 783 STR loci with all distance measures used. Such a convergent topology is presented in Figure 1, and we used this tree topology as a model tree. We are aware of many arguments that can be raised against this approach. Interestingly, however, the same tree topology as this one was obtained by all distance measures when all STR loci were used. Therefore, this tree is not an arbitrary one but is supported by both biogeographical and genetic data. As far as the STR data are concerned, this is the tree to which all tree estimates are supposed to converge as the number of loci increases.

Figure 1.—

The phylogenetic trees of 12 representative populations. The phylogenetic trees were constructed with different distance measures using 783 STR loci. The phylogenetic trees with all the distance measures have the same topology. This tree topology is used as a model tree for testing the relative efficiencies of the different distance measures. (A) The D_A tree. The numbers above and below the branches of the tree are bootstrap values and numbers assigned to the branches, respectively. (B) The D_S tree. (C) The F_ST* tree. (D) The F_ST′ tree. (E) The (δμ)² tree. (B–E) The numbers on the branches of the trees are bootstrap values. The countries where the populations are located are as follows: Yoruba, Nigeria; Mandenka, Senegal; Biaka Pygmy, Central African Republic; French, France; Basque, France; Russian, Russia; Japanese, Japan; Han, China; Cambodian, Cambodia; Pima, Mexico; Colombian, Columbia; and Karitiana, Brazil. There are two Han population samples in the data of Ramachandran et al. (2005) (see supplemental Tables 1–4 at http://www.genetics.org/supplemental/), Han from China and Han from northern China. Here we exclude the Han samples from northern China.

To measure the accuracy of a reconstructed tree, we computed the average of the topological distances (d_T) (Robinson and Foulds 1981; Nei and Kumar 2000) of constructed trees from the model tree, the probability (P_C) of obtaining the correct topology, and the probabilities (P₁) of obtaining the groupings (partitions) of the populations separated by each interior branch of the model tree with 10,000 replications. It should be noted that d_T is twice the number of partitions in a constructed tree different from those in the model tree. In this study we did not consider branch length errors, because it was difficult to determine the true or model branch lengths in the present case.

We computed the means and coefficients of variation (CVs) (standard deviation/mean) for the distance measures by the nonparametric bootstrap approach. The averages and the standard deviations of the distance values were computed for the distance values for 30 loci chosen at random in each replication by carrying out 10,000 replications.

RESULTS

Extent of variation in di-, tri-, and tetranucleotide repeat loci:

Because the extent of genetic polymorphism affects the efficiency of phylogenetic construction, we first examined the levels of heterozygosity for three different groups of STR loci with respect to the size of the unit of nucleotide repeats (Table 1). Average heterozygosities (H) were similar for three kinds of loci across all populations (0.715 for dinucleotide, 0.696 for trinucleotide, and 0.718 for tetranucletide repeat loci).

TABLE 1.

Average heterozygosities and numbers of alleles per locus for populations in different geographic regions

Geographic region	No. of populations	Heterozygosity (H)				No. of alleles per locus per population (na)
				All	Dinucleotide	Trinucleotide	Tetranucleotide	All	Dinucleotide	Trinucleotide	Tetranucleotide
Africa	8	0.757	0.793	0.763	0.753	5.79	6.84	5.84	5.69
Europe	8	0.729	0.745	0.716	0.732	5.88	6.54	5.76	5.88
Middle East	4	0.735	0.759	0.726	0.736	6.99	8.28	6.97	6.91
Central/South Asia	9	0.729	0.744	0.716	0.733	6.14	6.98	6.10	6.10
Oceania	2	0.667	0.657	0.627	0.681	5.07	5.31	4.77	5.16
America	4	0.606	0.564	0.561	0.625	4.41	4.60	4.10	4.51
East Asia	18	0.701	0.683	0.680	0.710	5.11	5.47	4.95	5.14
All populations	53	0.713	0.715	0.696	0.718	5.59	6.23	5.48	5.59
SDa		0.078	0.086	0.081	0.076	1.25	1.33	0.95	1.32
SEb		0.004	0.020	0.010	0.005

^aStandard deviation of heterozygosity (h) and the average of the number of alleles per locus per population (n_a).

^bStandard errors for average heterozygosities (H) (see materials and methods).

Table 1 also shows the average number (n_a) of alleles per locus for populations in different geographical regions. The average n_a for the entire set of populations is somewhat higher for dinucleotide repeat loci (6.23) than those for trinucleotide (5.48) and tetranucleotide repeat loci (5.58). The n_a's for trinucleotide and tetranucleotide repeat loci are similar, but the peak of the frequency distribution of n_a for tetranucleotide repeat loci is slightly shifted to the left and wider in comparison to that of trinucleotide repeat loci (Figure 2). Zhivotovsky et al. (2003) showed the frequency distributions of the number of alleles per locus for the entire population, not the average of the number of alleles per locus per population (n_a) that we examined in this study. We also computed the number of alleles per locus for the entire population (see supplemental Figure 1 at http://www.genetics.org/supplemental/). The shapes of the distributions of this quantity for the different repeat sizes are similar to those in Zhivotovsky et al. (2003), who used the subset of the loci used in this study, and to those of the averages of n_a in Figure 2.

Figure 2.—

Frequency distribution of average number of alleles per locus per population (n_a). (A) Dinucleotide repeat loci. (B) Trinucleotide repeat loci. (C) Tetranucleotide repeat loci.

Although the distributions of the average of n_a seem to be somewhat different among different types of STR loci of different repeat sizes, H values are similar for all three types of loci. Considering the large standard deviation associated with the n_a and relatively small numbers of dinucleotide (45) and trinucleotide (175) repeat loci, we decided to use all 783 loci together in the analysis of this study.

The values of H are the highest for the African populations and the smallest for the Oceanian and American populations (Table 1; for the heterozygosity values for all 53 populations see supplemental Tables 1–4 at http://www.genetics.org/supplemental/). The values of H are likely to reflect the large population size of Africans and the small population size of Oceanians and Americans. n_a is also smaller in these populations. But the n_a values of the Middle Eastern and Central/South Asian populations are higher than those of the African population. This could be due to the recent gene admixture that occurred in these regions.

Efficiency of constructing phylogenetic trees using different distance measures:

Table 2 shows the average topological distance () (measure of the extent of difference in topologies of constructed trees and the model tree) and the probabilities (P_C) of obtaining the topology of the tree of 12 populations constructed from the 783 loci (model tree) (Figure 1) for the cases of 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, 300, 500, and 700 loci computed by the nonparametric bootstrap approach (see materials and methods).

TABLE 2.

Average topological distance and the probabilities of obtaining the correct tree topology for different distance measures

	Average topological distance ()					Probability of obtaining the correct topology (PC) (%)
No. loci	DA	DS	FST*	FST′	(δμ)2	DA	DS	FST*	FST′	(δμ)2
10	4.8 ± 2.5	6.5 ± 2.8	5.9 ± 2.8	6.6 ± 2.8	10.7 ± 3.0	5.1	1.6	2.9	1.6	0.1
20	3.1 ± 2.1	4.6 ± 2.4	3.7 ± 2.9	4.5 ± 2.4	8.4 ± 2.8	16.1	6.2	10.8	6.8	0.4
30	2.2 ± 1.8	3.6 ± 2.2	2.8 ± 2.1	3.5 ± 2.2	7.3 ± 2.7	27.3	11.4	19.8	12.9	0.9
50	1.4 ± 1.5	2.6 ± 1.9	1.8 ± 1.7	2.4 ± 1.9	6.1 ± 2.5	46.9	22.2	35.7	24.9	1.7
100	0.5 ± 1.0	1.5 ± 1.5	0.9 ± 1.2	1.3 ± 1.4	4.8 ± 2.3	74.8	41.0	59.9	47.4	4.3
300	0.1 ± 0.4	0.8 ± 1.0	0.4 ± 0.8	0.6 ± 0.9	3.1 ± 2.0	95.1	62.5	80.7	72.9	14.8
500	0.0 ± 0.3	0.6 ± 0.9	0.3 ± 0.7	0.4 ± 0.8	2.4 ± 1.8	98.4	68.9	86.9	79.9	22.9
700	0.0 ± 0.1	0.5 ± 0.9	0.2 ± 0.6	0.3 ± 0.7	2.0 ± 1.6	99.5	72.8	90.4	84.2	28.8

Among the distance measures compared, D_A generally shows the smallest and the highest P_C-values. Following D_A, F_ST* has the second smallest and the second highest P_C. and P_C-values of D_S and F_ST′ are similar to each other, but F_ST′ has slightly lower and higher P_C-values than D_S. (δμ)² shows much higher and lower P_C-values than the other distance measures. This is because (δμ)² has low efficiency in phylogeny construction because of its large sampling error (Zhivotovsky and Feldman 1995; Takezaki and Nei 1996; Goldstein and Pollock 1997; Zhivotovsky et al. 2001). With 700 loci, while the P_C-value of D_A becomes almost 100% and P_C-values of F_ST*, D_S, and F_ST′ are >70%, the P_C-value of (δμ)² is only <30%.

Table 3 shows the probabilities (P₁) of obtaining the grouping of the populations (partitions) separated by each interior branch of the model tree (Figure 1). For example, at branch 1 of the model tree the populations are separated into Yoruba and Mandenka and the rest. The P₁-value at branch 1 is a frequency that a branch separating populations into Yoruba and Mandenka and the rest appeared in a constructed tree in the nonparametric bootstrap replications. The general tendency of relative efficiencies of the different distance measures at each interior branch is similar to that observed in and P_C as described above. D_A has the highest efficiency in phylogeny construction among all the distance measures examined, F_ST* has the second highest, D_S and F_ST′ have similar values, and (δμ)² has much lower efficiency than the other distance measures. However, F_ST* has the highest P₁-value and the P₁-value of D_A becomes the second highest at branch 6.

TABLE 3.

Probabilities (P₁) of obtaining the correct partitions for different distance measures

	Probability of obtaining the correct partition (P1) (%)
Branch 1					Branch 2					Branch 3
No. loci	DA	DS	FST*	FST′	(δμ)2	DA	DS	FST*	FST′	(δμ)2	DA	DS	FST*	FST′	(δμ)2
10	63	54	61	56	42	100	98	98	98	75	62	54	59	55	31
20	74	62	70	63	49	100	100	100	100	93	77	70	74	71	41
30	80	66	77	69	52	100	100	100	100	98	84	79	82	80	46
50	89	74	85	77	56	100	100	100	100	100	92	89	91	90	53
100	97	84	94	88	62	100	100	100	100	100	99	97	98	98	63
300	100	97	100	98	76	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	82
500	100	99	100	100	84	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	91
700	100	100	100	100	89	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	95
	Probability of obtaining the correct partition (P1) (%)
	Branch 4					Branch 5					Branch 6
No. loci	DA	DS	FST*	FST′	(δμ)2	DA	DS	FST*	FST′	(δμ)2	DA	DS	FST*	FST′	(δμ)2
10	84	67	74	65	45	47	35	42	36	23	59	53	63	52	28
20	95	82	90	81	63	58	43	52	45	28	73	67	80	66	40
30	98	89	95	88	72	64	48	57	50	31	80	74	87	73	47
50	100	95	99	94	83	72	52	64	57	34	89	83	95	81	54
100	100	99	100	99	94	82	58	71	65	38	97	93	99	91	64
300	100	100	100	100	100	95	65	81	74	43	100	100	100	100	81
500	100	100	100	100	100	98	69	87	80	46	100	100	100	100	88
700	100	100	100	100	100	100	73	90	84	46	100	100	100	100	91
	Probability of obtaining the correct partition (P1) (%)
	Branch 7					Branch 8					Branch 9
No. loci	DA	DS	FST*	FST′	(δμ)2	DA	DS	FST*	FST′	(δμ)2	DA	DS	FST*	FST′	(δμ)2
10	81	66	67	67	34	99	88	87	84	55	65	57	57	57	36
20	93	83	83	85	49	100	99	98	97	77	76	67	67	67	42
30	97	90	90	92	58	100	100	100	99	89	83	74	74	75	45
50	99	96	96	97	69	100	100	100	100	97	91	83	83	83	49
100	100	100	100	100	83	100	100	100	100	100	98	93	93	93	54
300	100	100	100	100	98	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	67
500	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	73
700	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	79

P₁-values at the branches that separate the clusters of the four geographic regions require smaller numbers of loci to reach high values (e.g., 90%) than those at the branches within the major geographic clusters. P₁-values for D_A, D_S, F_ST*, and F_ST′ are already ≥98% with 10 loci at branch 2 that separates Africans and non-Africans and ≥97% with 20 loci at branch 8 for the cluster of Americans. However, P₁-values of the four distance measures for the clusters of Europeans and East Asians require 50 and 100 loci to reach 90%. P₁-values of (δμ)² are lower than those for the other distances, but they reach 90% with 20 loci at the branch for the African cluster and with 50 loci for the American cluster. P₁-values of (δμ)² for the cluster of East Asians and for the clusters of East Asians and Americans need 300–500 loci to reach 90%. P₁-values of D_A, D_S, F_ST*, and F_ST′ at the branches within the clusters of the four geographic regions become ≥90% with 100 loci at branches 3 and 9 and with 300 loci at branch 1. P₁-values at branch 5 become 95% for D_A with 300 loci, but 70–80% for D_S, F_ST*, and F_ST′. The P₁-value of (δμ)² at branch 5 is <50% even with 700 loci and needs ≥500 loci to reach 90% at the other branches within the clusters of the major geographic regions.

Means and sampling errors of distance measures:

The efficiency of constructing phylogenetic trees by distance measures depends on their linearity with time and sampling errors (Goldstein and Pollock 1994; Tajima and Takezaki 1994; Takezaki and Nei 1996). Therefore, we examined the means and CVs of the distance measures. Figure 3 shows the means and CVs of the distance measures of each pair of the 12 populations (Figure 1) in relation to the mean (δμ)² computed for the same pair of populations in the abscissa by choosing 30 loci in the nonparametric bootstrap approach. In the data set used in this study, the assumptions for the linear increase of the expected (δμ)² with time apparently do not hold. The different heterozygosity values for the populations of the different geographic origins (Table 1) indicate that population sizes have changed some times. Further, the mutational pattern of microsatellite loci does not strictly follow the SMM (Di Rienzo et al. 1994; Ellegren 2000; Xu et al. 2000; Huang et al. 2002; Ellegren 2004). The other distance measures increase approximately linearly in short-term evolution, but lose the linearity with time quickly under the SMM (Takezaki and Nei 1996). Therefore, the means and CVs of the distance measures are shown in relation to the mean (δμ)² in the abscissa.

Figure 3.—

Relationships of the means and coefficients of variation of different distance measures in relation to the mean (δμ)². Average distance values and the coefficients of variation were computed for the 12 populations in Figure 1 by choosing 30 loci in each replication of the nonparametric bootstrap approach. (A) Means. (B) Coefficients of variation.

The slope of the mean D_S is the steepest among those of D_A, D_S, F_ST*, and F_ST′. When the mean (δμ)² in the abscissa is close to zero, the mean D_S is smaller than that of D_A, but slightly larger than those of F_ST* and F_ST′ (Figure 3A). However, as the average (δμ)² increases, the mean D_S becomes larger than the mean D_A and becomes the largest of the means of the four distance measures. The slopes of mean D_A, F_ST*, and F_ST′ are similar to one another, although the mean D_A is much larger than those of F_ST* and F_ST′ for all the (δμ)² values. Means of F_ST* and F_ST′ are similar to each other, but the mean F_ST′ is larger than that of F_ST* particularly for the larger abscissa values.

CVs of (δμ)² are much higher than those of the other distance measures (Figure 3B) as expected from theoretical and computer simulation studies (Zhivotovsky and Feldman 1995; Takezaki and Nei 1996; Zhivotovsky et al. 2001). By contrast, D_A has the smallest CVs for all the abscissa values. CVs of D_S, F_ST*, and F_ST′ are intermediate between those of (δμ)² and D_A, although CVs of these three distance measures are extremely high for small abscissa values (<0.2). CVs of D_S, F_ST*, and F_ST′ are very similar to one another, but D_S generally has the largest CVs of the three, F_ST′ has the second largest CVs, and CVs of F_ST* are the smallest.

In general, CV values are inversely related to the P_C-values of the distance measures. D_A with the highest P_C-values has the smallest CVs, and F_ST* with the second-highest P_C-values has the second-smallest CVs. (δμ)² that has the largest CVs shows the lowest P_C-values. Thus, as far as the data set used in this study is concerned, the relative values of CVs of the distance measures are a main factor that affects their performance in constructing phylogenies, and the effect of the linear increase of the distance measure with time seems minor.

Sample size:

To investigate the effect of sample size on the efficiency of phylogeny construction, we constructed phylogenetic trees for the 12 populations by sampling a different number of individuals (n) per locus. Average n values of the 783 loci are 20–45 for most of the populations (see supplemental Tables 1–4 at http://www.genetics.org/supplemental/). Average n values of the 12 populations in the model tree (Figure 1) are ∼25 except for Cambodian and Colombian populations whose average n values are 11.5 and 12.5, respectively.

We chose 5–25 individuals per locus for each population at random without replacement and recalculated the allele frequencies and computed P_C for a different number of loci (10–700). If the number of individuals at a locus was <5–25, we used all the available samples. Table 4 shows P_C-values for D_A distance. Note that the result of the other distance measures was essentially the same as that for D_A (data not shown). As expected for the data of high heterozygosities (0.6–0.8) (Table 1 and supplemental Tables 1–4 at http://www.genetics.org/supplemental/) (Takezaki and Nei 1996), the effect of sample size on P_C-values is quite large. By increasing n from 5 to 15, P_C-values increase to a great extent. In the case of 300–700 loci P_C-values are >80–90% for n = 15–25, but P_C-values are 40–60% for n = 5. It should be noted, however, that the number of loci generally has a larger effect on P_C-values than the sample size when n ≥ 15.

TABLE 4.

The probabilities of obtaining the correct tree topology (P_C) (%) for different sample sizes

	Diploid sample size (n)
No. loci	5	10	15	20	25
10	0	2	3	4	5
20	2	6	10	14	15
30	4	12	19	23	26
40	6	18	27	33	37
50	8	23	32	41	46
100	21	44	58	67	71
200	34	64	79	84	87
300	44	74	86	90	92
500	56	83	89	95	97
700	61	88	93	96	98

D_A distance was used. n is the number of individuals sampled from the data. If the n values in the data were smaller than the values in the table, all of the samples were used.

DISCUSSION

Using microsatellite data of human populations, this study showed that D_A distance is the most efficient in obtaining a correct branching pattern, followed by F_ST*, F_ST′, and D_S, and that (δμ)² has much lower efficiency than the other distance measures. This result is consistent with the previous computer simulation study, although efficiency of F_ST′ was not examined (Takezaki and Nei 1996). D_A, D_S, F_ST*, and F_ST′ were originally developed for classical genetic markers that the IAM can apply. Mean values for these distance measures approximately increase linearly with time after separation of the two populations for a small 2vt value (expected number of mutations) even under the SMM, but the rate of the increase slows down for large 2vt values. Theoretically, (δμ)² is expected to be proportional to mutation rate under the SMM. However, (δμ)² has a much larger sampling error than the other distance measures. As far as the data examined in this study are concerned, the extent of sampling error is a major factor that affects the efficiencies of phylogenetic construction of the distance measures.

The P_C-values for the actual STR loci obtained in this study are comparable to those in the case of H = 0.8 and the largest 2vt between populations = 0.56 in the computer simulation with the SMM (Takezaki and Nei 1996). They tend to be lower than those in the simulation for all the distance measures. But P_C-values of (δμ)² are particularly lower in this data analysis than in the simulation in comparison to the other distance measures. The mutational pattern of STR loci is believed to roughly follow the SMM. However, there are irregular changes such as a large number of nucleotide repeat changes or disruption of nucleotide repeats, the constraints for the repeat number, and the asymmetric mutation rate for contraction and expansion of the allele (Di Rienzo et al. 1994; Goldstein and Pollock 1997; Kruglyak et al. 1998) at STR loci. Furthermore, the mutation rates vary among the STR loci (Ellegren 2004). Such complication of the mutational pattern in these loci may have affected the efficiency of (δμ)² in phylogeny construction. Cooper et al. (1999) found that the standard deviation of (δμ)² is much larger than the expected value (Zhivotovsky and Feldman 1995; Goldstein and Pollock 1997) by studying 213 dinucleotide STR loci of four human populations. At any rate, the present study showed that (δμ)² is not efficient in reconstructing phylogenetic trees of populations even if a large number of loci are used.

We already have a DOS version of the computer program (POPTREE) for constructing phylogenetic trees for STR data with bootstrapping. It is available free of charge from http://www.bio.psu.edu/People/Faculty/Nei/Lab/software.htm. We are currently in the process of converting the program to a Windows version.