A class of population genetic questions formulated as the generalized occupancy problem.

Abstract

Abstract In categorical genetic data analysis when the sampling units are classified into an arbitrary number of distinct classes, sometimes the sample size may not be large enough to apply large sample approximations for hypothesis testing purposes. Exact sampling distributions of several statistics are derived here, using combinatorial approaches parallel to the classical occupancy problem to help overcome this difficulty. Since the multinomial probabilities can be unequal, this situation is described as a generalized occupancy problem. The sampling properties derived are used to examine nonrandomness of occurrence of mutagen-induced mutations across loci, to devise tests of Hardy-Weinberg proportions of genotype frequencies in the presence of a large number of alleles, and to provide a global test of gametic phase disequilibrium of several restriction site polymorphisms.