Coalescence times and FST under a skewed offspring distribution among individuals in a population

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Abstract:

Estimates of gene flow between subpopulations based on
F
ST
(or
N
ST
) are shown to be confounded by
the reproduction parameters of a model of skewed offspring distribution. Genetic evidence of population
subdivision can be observed even when gene flow is very high, if the offspring distribution is skewed. A
skewed offspring distribution arises when individuals can have very many offspring with some probability.
This leads to high probability of identity by descent within subpopulations and results in genetic
heterogeneity between subpopulations even when
Nm
is very large. Thus, we consider a limiting model in
which the rates of coalescence and migration can be much higher than for a Wright–Fisher population.
We derive the densities of pairwise coalescence times and expressions for
F
ST
and other statistics under
both the finite island model and a many-demes limit model. The results can explain the observed genetic

heterogeneity among subpopulations of certain marine organisms despite substantial gene flow

Last updated on 03/07/2016