Counting alleles with rarefaction: Private alleles and hierarchical sampling designs

摘要

The number of alleles ( allelic richness) in a population is a fundamental measure of genetic variation, and a useful statistic for identifying populations for conservation. Estimating allelic richness is complicated by the effects of sample size: large samples are expected to have more alleles. Rarefaction solves this problem. This communication extends the rarefaction procedure to count private alleles and to accommodate hierarchical sampling designs.