PROPERTIES OF ESTIMATORS OF THE INBREEDING COEFFICIENT AND THE RATE OF CROSS-FERTILIZATION OBTAINED FROM GENE-FREQUENCY DATA IN A DIPLOID POPULATION

The properties of the estimators of the inbreeding coefficient and the cross pollination rate were investigated in a diploid population. The estimates, obtained by the moments method, were based on the analysis of variance of the gene frequency of individuals from random samples. Since these estimators were obtained from the ratio of two random var iables, approximations were produced by the Taylor series function. Th e formulas obtained were checked using simulation data. The results in dicated that the estimators of the inbreeding and cross pollination ra tes are positively and negatively biased, respectively. The expression of these tendencies is a function of 1/n, which becomes smaller as th e sample size increases. The simulation confirmed those results and th e validity of the expressions to calculate the error of the estimates.