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Equation 27 · Part 2 · Evolutionary Biology and Ecology in Practice: An Advanced Technical Guide

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r^2\hat{r}^2
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What this part means

A raised number can be a power. When it is a label or bound, it selects a case or the upper limit of a sum; the formula’s structure distinguishes these uses.

Its job in the formula

A raised mark can be a power or an index. Its position and the surrounding notation determine which.

The passage around this formula

where r^2\hat{r}^2 is the mean squared correlation of allele frequencies across pairs of loci observed in the sample, and S is the sample size, with the 1/S term correcting for the sampling bias that a finite number of genotyped individuals introduces into r^2\hat{r}^2 even when the true population NeN_e is large. The practical consequence practitioners have to internalize: r^2\hat{r}^2 is estimated with noise from a finite sample, and that noise itself creates apparent linkage disequilibrium indistinguishable from drift-generated LD unless it is explicitly subtracted — which is exactly what the 1/S term does, and why the estimator is only trustworthy when the sample size and locus count used to…

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Learn the underlying idea

An exponent tells how a base is used in multiplication. In x³, x is the base and 3 is the exponent: x³ = x × x × x.

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Sources cited in the article section

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