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Watterson estimator



In population genetics, the Watterson estimator is a method for estimating θ = 4Neμ, where Ne is the effective population size and μ is the mutation rate of the population of interest (Watterson (1975)). The assumptions made are that there is a sample of n individuals from the population of interest, there are an infinitely many alleles possible, and that n \ll N_e.

The estimate of θ is

\theta = { K \over a_n },

where K is the number of segregating sites in the sample and

a_n = \sum^{n-1}_{i=1} {1 \over i}

is the (n − 1)th harmonic number.

This estimate is based on coalescent theory.

See also

References

  • Watterson, G.A. (1975), " ", Theoretical Population Biology 7: 256-276
 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Watterson_estimator". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.
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