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Genetics in geographically structured populations: defining, estimating and interpreting FST

2009; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 10; Issue: 9 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/nrg2611

1471-0064

Kent E. Holsinger, Bruce S. Weir,

Genetic Mapping and Diversity in Plants and Animals

FSTdescribes the processes that lead to genetic differentiation among and within populations and is widely used in population and evolutionary genetics. This article describes the meaning ofFSTand how it should be estimated and interpreted. Wright's F-statistics, and especially FST, provide important insights into the evolutionary processes that influence the structure of genetic variation within and among populations, and they are among the most widely used descriptive statistics in population and evolutionary genetics. Estimates of FST can identify regions of the genome that have been the target of selection, and comparisons of FST from different parts of the genome can provide insights into the demographic history of populations. For these reasons and others, FST has a central role in population and evolutionary genetics and has wide applications in fields that range from disease association mapping to forensic science. This Review clarifies how FST is defined, how it should be estimated, how it is related to similar statistics and how estimates of FST should be interpreted.