Generalization of the QST framework in hierarchically structured populations: Impacts of inbreeding and dominance

QST is a differentiation parameter based on the decomposition of the genetic variance of a trait. In the case of additive inheritance and absence of selection, it is analogous to the genic differentiation measured on individual loci, FST. Thus, QST - FST comparison is used to infer selection: selective divergence when QST > FST, or convergence when QST   0 (higher when FIS   FRT cases. We also show that dominance drastically reduces Q-statistics below F-statistics for any level of the hierarchy. Therefore, high values of Q-statistics are good indicators of selection, but low values are not in the case of dominance. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.