NEI’S TO BAYES’ COMPARING COMPUTATIONAL METHODS AND.pdfVIP

American Journal of Botany 95(11): 1466–1474. 2008. NEI ’S TO BAYES ’ : COMPARING COMPUTATIONAL METHODS AND GENETIC MARKERS TO ESTIMATE PATTERNS OF GENETIC VARIATION IN TOLPIS (ASTERACEAE)1 Nicholas D. Levsen,2,4 Daniel J. Crawford,2 Jenny K. Archibald,2 Arnoldo Santos-Geurra,3 and Mark E. Mort2 2 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and The Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045 USA; and 3 Jard í n de Aclimataci ó n de la Orotava, Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain Accurate determination of patterns of genetic variation provides a powerful inferential tool for studies of evolution and conser- vation. For more than 30 years, enzyme electrophoresis was the preferred method for elucidating these patterns. As a result, evo- lutionary geneticists have acquired considerable understanding of the relationship between patterns of allozyme variation and aspects of evolutionary process. Myriad molecular markers and statistical analyses have since emerged, enabling improved esti- mates of patterns of genetic diversity. With these advances, there is a need to evaluate results obtained with different markers and analytical methods. We present a comparative study of gene statistic estimates (F , G , F , H , and H ) calculated from an in- ST ST IS S T tersimple sequence repeat (ISSR) and an allozyme data set derived from the same populations using both standard and Bayesian