aalto@cc.helsinki.fi (Erkki 'rkki' Aalto, University of Helsinki, Finland) (03/06/91)
I am an ex-population geneticist working with computers for living. I have been playing with an extremely naive population genetics model of haploid organisms with discrete generations just for my own fun. This newsgroup is not too crowded, so perhaps I am allowed to ask a simple question. In the model the frequency of n:th allele in next generation x_n(t+1)=F_nx_n(t)/N, where F is a rather complicated fitness function and N is the normalization factor \sum_nF_nx_n. I would like to incorporate random drift in the model, ie. replace x_n(t+1) with a random number with mean X_n(t+1) and standard deviation some function of population size. What would be the simplest way of doing this? A quick and dirty approximation is enough, as I am after qualitative behaviour, and there is no realism in the model anyway. I believe this should be a trivial question to anyone who has done population genetics simulations. I have actually never done it, and I do not have literature available. Erkki Aalto University of Helsinki Finland Internet: aalto@phcu.helsinki.fi Bitnet: aalto@finuhcb