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It is well known that the neutral allelic frequency spectrum of a population is affected by the history of population size. A number of authors have used this fact to infer history given observed allele frequency data. We ask whether perfect information concerning the spectrum allows precise recovery of the history, and with an explicit example show that the answer is in the negative. This implies some limitations on how informative allelic spectra can be.

Original publication

DOI

10.1016/j.tpb.2008.01.001

Type

Journal article

Journal

Theor Popul Biol

Publication Date

05/2008

Volume

73

Pages

342 - 348

Keywords

Alleles, Gene Frequency, Genetics, Population, Humans, Models, Theoretical, Population Density