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Do microsatellites reflect genome‐wide genetic diversity in natural populations? A comment on Väli et al. (2008)
Author(s) -
LJUNGQVIST MARCUS,
ÅKESSON MIKAEL,
HANSSON BENGT
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
molecular ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.619
H-Index - 225
eISSN - 1365-294X
pISSN - 0962-1083
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-294x.2010.04522.x
Subject(s) - biology , microsatellite , genetic diversity , loss of heterozygosity , disequilibrium , linkage disequilibrium , evolutionary biology , genetics , genome , inbreeding , single nucleotide polymorphism , demographic history , genetic variation , population , genotype , allele , gene , medicine , demography , sociology , ophthalmology
A recent study by Väli et al. (2008) highlights that microsatellites will often provide a poor prediction of the genome‐wide nucleotide diversity of wild populations, but does not fully explain why. To clarify and stress the importance of identity disequilibrium and marker variability for correlations between multilocus heterozygosity and genome‐wide genetic variability, we performed a simple simulation with different types of markers, corresponding to microsatellites and SNPs, in populations with different inbreeding history. The importance of identity disequilibrium was apparent for both markers and there was a clear impact of marker variability.