The correlation of rare alleles with heterozygosity: determination of the correlation for the neutral models

Abstract

SUMMARYWe have shown in an earlier paper that there is routinely a large correlation between the heterozygosity of common (P> 0·05) alleles and the number of rare (P≤ 0·05) alleles at allozyme loci inDrosophila. We postulated that this correlation might be due to a high rate of intragenic recombination. While these correlations are large enough to be significantly different from zero, their relation to the mean correlations expected under the neutrality models is unknown. This paper reports the findings of a computer analysis determining the correlation for neutral allele pools as specified by the infinite-allele and charge-state models.In the analysis, mean correlations for a range ofNeμ values and sample sizes of 100 and 1000 genes varied from a high of 0·284 to a low of – 0·780. For the particular values ofNeμ relating to the heterozygosity ofDrosophilaallozymes in natural populations, tests of the empirical correlations to the means expected under the neutral models are made. Most empirical correlations are significantly different from the mean correlations under the neutrality models.