We investigate through numerical simulations the effect of selection on two
summary statistics for nucleotide variation in a sample of two genes from
a population of N asexually reproducing haploid individuals. One is the mea
n time since two individuals had their most recent common ancestor (<(T)ove
r bar(s)>), and the other is the mean number of nucleotide differences betw
een two genes in the sample (<(d)over bar(s)>). In the case of diminishing
epistasis, in which the deleterious effect of a new mutation is attenuated,
we find that the scale of <(d)over bar(s)> with the population size depend
s on the mutation rate, leading then to the onset of a sharp threshold phen
omenon as N becomes large. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserv
ed.