A maximum-likelihood estimation of pairwise relatedness for autopolyploids.

ABSTRACT: Relatedness between individuals is central to ecological genetics. Multiple methods are available to quantify relatedness from molecular data, including method-of-moment and maximum-likelihood estimators. We describe a maximum-likelihood estimator for autopolyploids, and quantify its statistical performance under a range of biologically relevant conditions. The statistical performances of five additional polyploid estimators of relatedness were also quantified under identical conditions. When comparing truncated estimators, the maximum-likelihood estimator exhibited lower root mean square error under some conditions and was more biased for non-relatives, especially when the number of alleles per loci was low. However, even under these conditions, this bias was reduced to be statistically i

SUBMITTER: Huang K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4815632 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature