Variance of <i>K</i> _s distribution corrects the bias in the divergence caused by the ancestral population size.

ABSTRACT: Ks distribution, the distribution of the synonymous substitutions, has been widely used to estimate the species divergence using orthologous genes. However, conventional approaches often ignore the underlying bias that species divergence is delayed to average gene divergence by 2N _e generations, where N _e represents the ancestral effective population size, due to the lack of scalable methods for N _e inference. Here, we demonstrate through simulations that K _s distribution variance correlates with N _e, enabling direct estimation of ancestral population parameters from standard K _s data. Leveraging this relationship, we present Tspecies, a framework that corrects divergence time

SUBMITTER: Li MJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12753092 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature