Table 1

The effect of sample number under different evolutionary scenarios. Result in this table are based on typical parameter values from the ancient DNA literature and a bouquet sampling scheme (see text). Fixed parameter values are: fragment length = 500 nucleotides, substitution rate per nucleotide site = 1·10-7, number of extant samples = 30. Given these values any combination of the population size parameter (Ne) and the maximal number of generations spanning the sampling interval (gmax ) can be translated to a value of the population parameter (θ) and the maximum length of the sampling interval (τmax ) which are measured in units of generations (see text for definition). For various such parameter combinations we here list the associated values of θ, τmax, and the calculated number of ancient samples needed to have a greater than 95% chance of seeing at least one segregating site where the mutation is unique to the ancient individuals (nu) and the number of ancient samples needed to have a greater than 95% chance of seeing at least one segregating site where the mutation is shared between ancient and extant individuals (ns).
Ne
 θ
 gmax
 τmax
 nu
 ns
5000
 0.5
 1000
 0.2
 > 50
 > 50
-
 -
 5000
 1.0
 > 50
 > 50
-
 -
 10000
 2.0
 > 50
 > 50
-
 -
 30000
 6.0
 > 50
 > 50
-
 -
 50000
 10.0
 > 50
 > 50
10000
 1.0
 1000
 0.1
 > 50
 > 50
-
 -
 5000
 0.5
 > 50
 > 50
-
 -
 10000
 1.0
 > 50
 > 50
-
 -
 30000
 3.0
 42
 > 50
-
 -
 50000
 5.0
 39
 > 50
30000
 3.0
 1000
 0.03
 44
 3
-
 -
 5000
 0.17
 23
 5
-
 -
 10000
 0.33
 15
 7
-
 -
 30000
 1.0
 9
 > 50
-
 -
 50000
 1.67
 7
 > 50
50000
 5.0
 1000
 0.02
 26
 2
-
 -
 5000
 0.1
 16
 2
-
 -
 10000
 0.2
 11
 3
-
 -
 30000
 0.6
 7
 6
-
 -
 50000
 1.0
 5
 9

Forsberg et al. BMC Genetics 2005 6:35   doi:10.1186/1471-2156-6-35