Population Trees from Genetic Markers

Abstract

Abstract To construct a phylogenetic tree for a group of populations or closely related species, it is customary to use allele frequency data from many different genetic loci. This is because the genetic differences between pop ulations are small and they are usually measured in terms of allele frequency differences rather than nucleotide or amino acid differences. Of course, any allelic difference is caused by differences in nucleotide sequence between alleles. Therefore, the ideal approach to this problem is to consider the nucleotide differences as well as the frequency differences among populations.