A pairwise relatedness estimator for polyploids

Abstract

Studies in genetics and ecology often require estimates of relatedness coefficients based on genetic marker data. Many diploid estimators have been developed using either method-of-moments or maximum-likelihood estimates. However, there are no relatedness estimators for polyploids. The development of a moment estimator for polyploids with polysomic inheritance, which simultaneously incorporates the two-gene relatedness coefficient and various 'higher-order' coefficients, is described here. The performance of the estimator is compared to other estimators under a variety of conditions. When using a small number of loci, the estimator is biased because of an increase in ill-conditioned matrices. However, the estimator becomes asymptotically unbiased with large numbers of loci. The ambiguity of polyploid heterozygotes (when balanced heterozygotes cannot be distinguished from unbalanced heterozygotes) is also considered; as with low numbers of loci, genotype ambiguity leads to bias. A software, PolyRelatedness, implementing this method and supporting a maximum ploidy of 8 is provided.