A clever solution to a vexing problem

Abstract

FST (as well as related measures such as GST) has long been used both as a measure of the relative amount of genetic variation between populations and as an indicator of the amount of gene flow among populations. Unfortunately, FST and its clones are also sensitive to mutation, particularly when the mutation rate per locus is greater than the migration rate among populations. Relatively high mutation rates cause estimates of FST and GST to be much lower than researchers sometimes expect, when migration rates are low in the studied species. Several recent suggestions for dealing with this problem have been unsatisfactory for one reason or another, and no general solution exists (if we are not to abandon these otherwise useful measures of differentiation). In an important article in this issue, Jinliang Wang (2015) shows that it is possible to identify whether the genetic markers in a given study are likely to give estimates of FST that are strongly affected by mutation. The proposed test is simple and elegant, and with it, molecular ecologists can determine whether the FST from their makers can be depended on for further inference about their species' genome and the demographic forces which shaped its patterns.