Sex-specific genetic differentiation and coalescence times: estimating sex-biased dispersal rates

International audienceI derive the equilibrium values of sex-specific FST parameters, in an island model for a dioecious species with sex-biased dispersal and binomial distribution of family size before dispersal (as assumed in a Wright–Fisher population). I show that FST may take different values among males and among females whenever dispersal is a trait conditioned on gender. This has not always been recognized, because some models assumed that genes are sampled before dispersal. In particular, the ratios of sex-specific FST parameters evaluated after dispersal over FST evaluated before dispersal are simple functions of sex-specific dispersal rates. Therefore, a simple moment-based estimator of sex-specific dispersal rate is proposed. This method is based on the comparison of FST estimated before and after dispersal and assumes equilibrium between migration and drift. I evaluate this method through stochastic simulations for a range of sex-specific dispersal rates and sampling effort (sample size, number of loci scored)