Is knowing the age-order of alleles in a sample useful in testing for selective neutrality?

Abstract

The most powerful, and most frequently used, test of selective neutrality, based on data consisting of observed allelic frequencies in a sample of genes at some locus, is the procedure of G. A. Watterson. This procedure uses the sample homozygosity F* as the test statistic, and in effect leads to rejection of the hypothesis of selective neutrality if the observed value of F* differs significantly from neutral theory expectations. The homozygosity statistic is invariant under relabeling of the alleles and thus cannot use any further information on the alleles which might be available. We present results which suggest that information concerning the age order of the alleles cannot be used to provide a more powerful testing procedure than that of Watterson.