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A new model for measuring breeding genetic distance
Author(s) -
CARLSON ROGER,
WELCH Q. B.
Publication year - 1977
Publication title -
annals of human genetics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.537
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1469-1809
pISSN - 0003-4800
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-1809.1977.tb01863.x
Subject(s) - biology , genetic distance , evolutionary biology , genetics , genetic variation , gene
SUMMARY A model is proposed for measuring the genetic ‘distance’ between two populations having gene frequencies p and p* . The measure of distance is based on a hypothetical selection process as follows: From population Pasubpopulation P* can be selected having gene frequency p* . Let P 0 be the largest subpopulation yielding gene frequency p* , then the relative size of P 0 to P ‐denoted by θ 0 ( pp*)‐ is a measure of the ‘closeness’ of populations having gene frequencies p and p* , and 1 ‐ θ 0 ( p, p* ) would be a reasonable measure of genetic distance. We show that the calculation of θ 0 ( p, p* ) is a special case of the linear programming problem and derive algebraic expressions for θ 0 ( p, p* ) in the two‐allele case. We discuss some of the implications of the use of this measure of distance and compare it to others which have been proposed. We use linear programming methods to calculate genetic distance for three alleles.