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Updated: Aug 15, 2026

Predicting the Effectiveness of Population Replacement Strategy Using Mathematical Modeling
Published on: July 4, 2007
Inbreeding coefficients for stochastically varying small population sizes-bias of calculation based on effective
Manfred Hühn1, Hans-Peter Piepho
1Institute of Crop Science and Plant Breeding, University of Kiel, Am Botanischen Garten 1-9, D-24118 Kiel, Germany.
Abstract:
The commonly used procedure to calculate inbreeding coefficients by effective population numbers (Ne) by the harmonic mean of generation-by-generation population sizes involves a computational bias. If the individual population sizes are considered as realizations of a binomially distributed random variable with sample size N and probability p, this bias can be investigated for the two cases p = constant and p = variable (Markov chain). The bias is of practical relevance only for small probabilities p, short period of initial successive generations, and small population sizes. The largest values for this computational bias are in the range of 0.05-0.06. It is concluded that for most practical purposes the approximate procedure is appropriate.
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