Population geneticists often attempt to draw inferences about population structure and history from the geographic distribution and relative frequency of genetic variants. For example, the rate of migration among populations can be estimated from the among-population variance in allele frequency, assuming a particular model of relative migration probabilities. Unfortunately, a number of different population structure and historical phenomena can yield similar patterns of allele frequency distribution which makes the use of these indirect estimates of population structure difficult. In the proposed study, I will test several predictions of a new method that attempts to solve this problem. Our new method combines information from the geographic distribution of alleles, allele frequency, and the phylogenetic relationship of those allele to differentiate several forms of population structure (panmixia, island model migration, isolation by distance) from each other and from several historical phenomena (gradual range expansion, long distance colonization, fragmentation). I will survey nucleotide site variation in mitochondrial DNA of five species of amphibians are known from other data, the mtDNA data can be used to test the accuracy of the new method.
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