JK Pritchard and MW Feldman 1998. A test for heterogeneity of microsatellite variation. In ``Proceedings of the Trinational Workshop on Molecular Evolution'', M. K. Uyenoyama and A. von Haeseler, eds. pp. 47-56. Duke University Publications Group, Durham, NC.

Levels of variation at microsatellite loci depend on both the effective population size and the microsatellite mutation rate. In addition, the amount of variation can be impacted by other forces, such as population bottlenecks or selection at linked loci. In this paper, we develop a formal statistical test for testing whether levels of microsatellite variation in different groups of loci are significantly different. We apply this test to examine differences between autosomal and Y chromosome loci, to test whether these loci have different levels of variation. We also compare autosomal and Y chromosome loci at global, and regional scales to test for Y chromosome bottleneck effects.

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