English

An approximate sampling formula under genetic hitchhiking

Probability 2007-05-23 v3 Populations and Evolution

Abstract

For a genetic locus carrying a strongly beneficial allele which has just fixed in a large population, we study the ancestry at a linked neutral locus. During this ``selective sweep'' the linkage between the two loci is broken up by recombination and the ancestry at the neutral locus is modeled by a structured coalescent in a random background. For large selection coefficients α\alpha and under an appropriate scaling of the recombination rate, we derive a sampling formula with an order of accuracy of O((logα)2)\mathcal{O}((\log \alpha)^{-2}) in probability. In particular we see that, with this order of accuracy, in a sample of fixed size there are at most two nonsingleton families of individuals which are identical by descent at the neutral locus from the beginning of the sweep. This refines a formula going back to the work of Maynard Smith and Haigh, and complements recent work of Schweinsberg and Durrett on selective sweeps in the Moran model.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0503485,
  title  = {An approximate sampling formula under genetic hitchhiking},
  author = {Alison Etheridge and Peter Pfaffelhuber and Anton Wakolbinger},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0503485},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/105051606000000114 in the Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org)