Effective Population Size

Range <=1e+6 Organisms
Organism Fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster
Reference Hawks J, Hunley K, Lee SH, Wolpoff M. Population bottlenecks and Pleistocene human evolution. Mol Biol Evol. 2000 Jan17(1):2-22. p.15 right column bottom paragraphPubMed ID10666702
Primary Source Kaplan NL, Hudson RR, Langley CH. The "hitchhiking effect" revisited. Genetics. 1989 Dec123(4):887-99.PubMed ID2612899
Method (Primary source) Using the coalescent process for a random sample of genes from a selectively neutral locus that is linked to a locus at which selection is taking place, a stochastic, finite population model is developed that describes the steady state effect of hitchhiking on the distribution of the number of selectively neutral polymorphic sites in a random sample.
Comments The effective population size (Ne) is the number of individuals in an ideally behaving, random- mating population that has the same magnitude of genetic drift as the actual population of interest (Wright 1938 Crow and Kimura 1970 Hartl and Clark 1997). Its calculation always assumes that the genes concerned are neutral and unlinked to genes that may be perturbed by selection (Caballero 1994).
Entered by Uri M
ID 104623