Effective population sizes of structured populations - a mathematical overview

Abstract

The effective population size Ne is an important notion of population genetics and conservation biology. Loosely speaking it is the census size of an ideal population that exhibits the same rate of loss of genetic diversity, as the studied population. The smaller Ne is, the larger is the rate of lost diversity, and the larger is the risk of inbreeding depression and ultimately of species extinction. Of particular interest is how migration between the components of a geographically structured population affects Ne. In this talk I review various mathematical definitions of Ne that address this question in slightly different ways. It is based on several years of joint work with Nils Ryman and Linda Laikre at Stockholm University.