Technical note: Measures of differentiation for quantitative traits

Abstract

AbstractStudies of anthropological genetics and bioarcheology often examine the degree of among‐group variation in quantitative traits such as craniometrics and anthropometrics. One comparative index of among‐group differentiation is the minimum value of Wright's as estimated from quantitative traits. This measure has been used in certain population‐genetic applications such as comparison with estimated from genetic data, although some inferences are limited by how well the data and study design fit the underlying population‐genetic model. In many cases, all that is needed is a simple measure of among‐group variation. One such measure is , the proportion of total phenotypic variation accounted for by among‐group phenotypic variation, a measure easily obtained from analysis of variance and regression methods. This paper shows that and minimum are closely related as . is computationally easy and may be useful in cases where all we need is a simple measure of relative among‐group differentiation.