My favorite aspect of population genetics is inference of population history from genetic data. Whether you are thinking about human history or the history of your favorite non-model organism, inferring demographic history is not just interesting for its own sake, but is also a critical step for any study of selection.
I have worked on a variety of demographic inference projects and am particularly interested in comparing different methods and making the subject more accessible to all of us who study non-model organisms.
You can check out our paper that demonstrates that popular methods of demographic inference don’t always predict other summaries of the data, and so shouldn’t be taken too literally, and our review paper detailing different inference methods and their application to non-model organisms. Use our flow chart to find the method that’s right for your data and questions!
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