Using Maximum Likelihood to Estimate Population Size From Temporal Changes in Allele Frequencies

Corresponding author: Ellen G. Williamson, University of California, Integrative Biology, 3060 VLSB, Berkeley, CA 94720-3141., ellenw{at}socrates.berkeley.edu (E-mail)

Communicating editor: G. A. CHURCHILL

We develop a maximum-likelihood framework for using temporal changes in allele frequencies to estimate the number of breeding individuals in a population. We use simulations to compare the performance of this estimator to an F-statistic estimator of variance effective population size. The maximum-likelihood estimator had a lower variance and smaller bias. Taking advantage of the likelihood framework, we extend the model to include exponential growth and show that temporal allele frequency data from three or more sampling events can be used to test for population growth.

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