Modeling of African population history using f-statistics is biased when applying all previously proposed SNP ascertainment schemes.

ABSTRACT: f-statistics have emerged as a first line of analysis for making inferences about demographic history from genome-wide data. Not only are they guaranteed to allow robust tests of the fits of proposed models of population history to data when analyzing full genome sequencing data-that is, all single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the individuals being analyzed-but they are also guaranteed to allow robust tests of models for SNPs ascertained as polymorphic in a population that is an outgroup in a phylogenetic sense to all groups being analyzed. True "outgroup ascertainment" is in practice impossible in humans because our species has arisen from a substructured ancestral population that does not descend from a homogeneous ancestral population going back many hundreds of thousands of years

SUBMITTER: Flegontov P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10508636 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature