Reliability assessment of null allele detection: inconsistencies between and within different methods.

摘要: Microsatellite loci are widely used in population genetic studies, but the presence of null alleles may lead to biased results. Here, we assessed five methods that indirectly detect and found large inconsistencies among them. Our analysis was based on 20 microsatellite genotyped a natural Microtus oeconomus sampled during 8 years, together with 1200 simulated populations without alleles, experiencing bottlenecks varying duration intensity, 120 known alleles. In population, 29% positive results were consistent between pairwise comparisons, data set, this proportion 14%. The also inconsistent different years population. null-allele-free number false positives increased bottleneck intensity duration. We low concordance allele detection original their 20% random subsets. include 22% 42% true remained undetected, which highlighted errors not restricted positives. None evaluated clearly outperformed others when both false-positive false-negative rates considered. Accepting only at least two should considerably reduce rate, approach increase rate. study demonstrates need for novel could be reliably applied populations.