Equation 18 · Part 1 · Evolutionary Biology and Ecology in Practice: An Advanced Technical Guide
Symbol N_e
What this part means
the downward in inferred.
Its job in the formula
is a part of this expression. Its role is fixed by the surrounding article and by the operations shown in the formula.
Full expression→Symbol N_e→Article meaning
Where the article explains it
Physically linked loci must be excluded or flagged , because the method’s entire logic depends on treating background disequilibrium as drift-generated between unlinked loci; loci close together on the same chromosome carry disequilibrium from physical linkage that has nothing to do with and will bias the estimate upward in apparent LD, downward in inferred .
The passage around this formula
Effective population size, , is not census size. It is the size of an idealized population — with random mating, no selection, non-overlapping generations, and equal sex ratio — that would show the same rate of genetic drift as the real population under study. Because governs how fast a population loses genetic variation and how strongly drift competes with selection, it is one of the central quantities in conservation genetics: a population with a small loses adaptive variation and accumulates inbreeding depression faster than its census size alone would suggest.
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Sources cited in the article section
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