Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!uunet!bionet!URZ.UNIBAS.CH!blot
From: blot@URZ.UNIBAS.CH (Michel Blot)
Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio
Subject: Estimation of Gene Flow (was re: true gene flow)
Message-ID: <9010162206.AA29311@genbank.bio.net>
Date: 16 Oct 90 14:49:00 GMT
References: <9010160221.AA15497@dxmint.cern.ch>
Sender: daemon@genbank.bio.net
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As you mentioned, planktonic larvae are a real bear to work with, especially
with allozyme methods, not only because the small size do not allow individual
analysis with a satisfactory resolution but also because we donot have any idea
 of the fitness of genotypes at the time of recruitment.
There is a meanto measure gene flow with allozyme data with a statistical model
by Slatkin (1985) based on the rare allozyme distribution among demes. However,
 one condition is that the genotypes are equally fitted, which has been shown
not to be the case in a number of studies with marine mollusks (see Koehn & Hil
lbish 1987 for a review). There is an alternative with the use of another tool
Reatriction Fragment Length Polymorphism of mitochondrial DNA which evolves fas
t enough to be a non-adaptive tagger of populations. Slatkin(1989) made a model
to analyse gene flow with the distribution of mtDNA patterns. The method works
fine in marine mollusks (Skibinski 1985, Reeb and Avise 1990, Blot et al. 1990)
 and is on the way to be used for estimating precisely gene flow.
Slatkin 1985 Evolutio 39:53-65
Koehn & Hillbish 1987 Amer.Scient. 75:134-141
Slatkin & Madison 1989 Genetics 123:603-613
Skibinski 1985 J.Exp.Mar.Biol.Ecol.92:251-258
Reeb & Avise 1990 Genetics 124:397-406
Blot et al 1990 J.Exp.Mar.Biol.Ecol.141:--
Yours Sincerely,
Michel Blot
Dept Microbiology, Biozentrum
CH-Basel