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On minimizing assignment errors and the trade‐off between false positives and negatives in parentage analysis
Author(s) -
Harrison Hugo B.,
SaenzAgudelo Pablo,
Planes Serge,
Jones Geoffrey P.,
Berumen Michael L.
Publication year - 2013
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/mec.12527
Subject(s) - false positive paradox , biology , bayes' theorem , false positives and false negatives , type i and type ii errors , microsatellite , true positive rate , statistics , bayes factor , false positive rate , genetics , bayesian probability , computer science , mathematics , artificial intelligence , gene , allele
Genetic parentage analyses provide a practical means with which to identify parent–offspring relationships in the wild. In Harrison et al .'s study (2013a), we compare three methods of parentage analysis and showed that the number and diversity of microsatellite loci were the most important factors defining the accuracy of assignments. Our simulations revealed that an exclusion‐Bayes theorem method was more susceptible to false‐positive and false‐negative assignments than other methods tested. Here, we analyse and discuss the trade‐off between type I and type II errors in parentage analyses. We show that controlling for false‐positive assignments, without reporting type II errors, can be misleading. Our findings illustrate the need to estimate and report both the rate of false‐positive and false‐negative assignments in parentage analyses.