Sivan Leviyang
Georgetown University
Title: A coalescent analysis of the populations genetics statistic Fst.
Populations are often divided into subpopulations. Biologists use a genetic diversity statistic called Fst to perform hypothesis tests involving subdivided populations. While Fst is broadly used for statistical analysis of populations, little is known about its distribution under different evolutionary models. In this talk we consider Fst under two well known stochastic models of evolution: the island model and the 2-d stepping stone model. We use coalescent theory to show that both models, in certain scalings, fall within a class of models described by a form of the Kingman coalescent. We derive the distribution of Fst for this general class of models. Finally, we discuss the implication of our results for biological applications.
©2008, Department of Mathematical Sciences
Last Modified: September 27, 2008