[Genetically dispersed effective population size determined by mitochondrial genes]

A formula for variance effective population size (Ne) for analysis of mitochondrial genes is deduced and discussed. Only the female part of the population is taken into account; hence, Ne is, in the given case, the effective number of females. Ne = m2(N - 1)/sigma 2, where N is the number of females, sigma 2 is the variance of the reproductive contributions of individual females (measured as the number of their daughters that are part of the next generation), and m is the mean number of daughters per female.