GENELOSS: A computer program for simulating the effects of population bottlenecks on genetic diversity

In the absence of tractable theory for predicting how population bottlenecks of longer than one generation reduce allelic diversity, we wrote the program GENELOSS to simulate the effects of population bottlenecks on genetic variation at highly polymorphic loci such as microsatellites. GENELOSS describes the heterozygosity and allelic diversity remaining after each iteration and averages the results of up to 3000 iterations. Thirty loci with 30 alleles each can be specified. Bottlenecks of up to 1000 pairs can run for an unlimited number of generations. GENELOSS will be a useful tool for the study of bottleneck effects and conservation biology.3 page(s