A COMPARISON OF GENE FLOW ESTIMATES BASED ON PRIVATE ALLELE FREQUENCIES

The frequency of private alleles is often used to assess the amount of gene flow (Nm) between populations, with the equations proposed by SL ATKIN (1985b) and by SLATKIN and BARTON (1989). Although these equatio ns express the same relationship, they may yield different estimates o f gene flow for the same data. These differences increase with decreas ing frequencies of private alleles. Comparisons of Nm estimates, based on different equations can therefore be misleading. It is advisable t o use these equations method only to distinguish between Nm > 1 and Nm < 1.