You sequence 2 populations of beetles and determine that each population has the

Question

You sequence 2 populations of beetles and determine that each population has the same number of neutral mutations coming up in each generation of beetles. One population had an effective size that is twice that of the other. Which population of beetles would you suspect to have a higher rate of substitution. Show your work You sequence 2 populations of beetles and determine that each population has the same number of neutral mutations coming up in each generation of beetles. One population had an effective size that is twice that of the other. Which population of beetles would you suspect to have a higher rate of substitution. Show your work

Explanation / Answer

Let,
the two populations be pop1 and pop2.
N1 = effective size of pop1
N2 = effective size of pop2
N2 = 2*N1 (pop1 is smaller than pop2)
M = number of neutral mutations in each population in each generation (constant).

Now,
M1 = neutral mutations per individual in pop1 = M/N1
M2 = neutral mutations per individual in pop2 = M/N2
But N2 = 2*N1 => M/N1 > M/(2*N1) => M1 > M2
Hence, assuming that some fixed proportion of neutral mutations are substitutions we can say that rate of substitution is greater in the pop1 thant pop2. This means that the smaller effective populations will have higher rate of subtitutions per individual per generation.

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