CVhaplot: a consensus tool for statistical haplotyping

Haplotypes contain genealogical information and play a prominent part in population genetic and evolutionary studies. However, haplotype inference is a complex statistical problem, showing considerable internal algorithm variability and among-algorithm discordance. Thus, haplotypes inferred by statistical algorithms often contain hidden uncertainties, which may complicate and even mislead downstream analysis. Consensus strategy is one of the effective means to increase the confidence of inferred haplotypes. Here, we present a consensus tool, the CVhaplot package, to automate consensus techniques for haplotype inference. It generates consensus haplotypes from inferrals of competing algorithms to increase the confidence of haplotype inference results, while improving the performance of individual algorithms by considering their internal variability. It can effectively identify uncertain haplotypes potentially associated with inference errors. In addition, this tool allows file format conversion for several popular algorithms and extends the applicability of some algorithms to complex data containing triallelic polymorphic sites. CVhaplot is written in PERL and freely available at http://www.ioz.ac.cn/department/agripest/group/zhangdx/CVhaplot.htm.