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Updated: Aug 17, 2026

Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations
Published on: February 3, 2023
Ewens' sampling formula and related formulae: combinatorial proofs, extensions to variable population size and
Robert C Griffiths1, Sabin Lessard
1Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, 1 South Parks Rd, Oxford OX1 3TG, UK. griff@stats.ox.ac.uk
Abstract:
Ewens' sampling formula, the probability distribution of a configuration of alleles in a sample of genes under the infinitely-many-alleles model of mutation, is proved by a direct combinatorial argument. The distribution is extended to a model where the population size may vary back in time. The distribution of age-ordered frequencies in the population is also derived in the model, extending the GEM distribution of age-ordered frequencies in a model with a constant-sized population. The genealogy of a rare allele is studied using a combinatorial approach. A connection is explored between the distribution of age-ordered frequencies and ladder indices and heights in a sequence of random variables. In a sample of n genes the connection is with ladder heights and indices in a sequence of draws from an urn containing balls labelled 1,2,...,n; and in the population the connection is with ladder heights and indices in a sequence of independent uniform random variables.
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