On the past history of an allele now known to have frequency p

Abstract

Consider a diploid population of N individuals undergoing random mating and mutation as in the infinite-allele Wright model. Choose a particular gene in generation Q for large Q, and let ft (0 ≦ t ≦ Q) be the frequency of the allelic type of the predecessor of that particular gene (or the gene itself) in generation t. By considering a ‘diffusion approximation' {xt} of {ft}, we find the distribution of the age of an allelic type now known to have frequency p, and of its distribution of frequencies since the allele came into existence. A novelty here is that the process {xt} is not a diffusion, but a process with jumps; it has x = 0 as an inaccessible entrance boundary but periodically jumps to it from the interior of [0, 1]. The formulas obtained are the same as those derived by Maruyama and Kimura, who used a totally different approach.