Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2007 Sep;16(18):3737-58.
doi: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2007.03435.x.

Statistical analysis of amplified fragment length polymorphism data: a toolbox for molecular ecologists and evolutionists

A Bonin  1 , D Ehrich, S Manel
Affiliations
Review

Statistical analysis of amplified fragment length polymorphism data: a toolbox for molecular ecologists and evolutionists

A Bonin et al. Mol Ecol. 2007 Sep.

Abstract

Recently, the amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) technique has gained a lot of popularity, and is now frequently applied to a wide variety of organisms. Technical specificities of the AFLP procedure have been well documented over the years, but there is on the contrary little or scattered information about the statistical analysis of AFLPs. In this review, we describe the various methods available to handle AFLP data, focusing on four research topics at the population or individual level of analysis: (i) assessment of genetic diversity; (ii) identification of population structure; (iii) identification of hybrid individuals; and (iv) detection of markers associated with phenotypes. Two kinds of analysis methods can be distinguished, depending on whether they are based on the direct study of band presences or absences in AFLP profiles ('band-based' methods), or on allelic frequencies estimated at each locus from these profiles ('allele frequency-based' methods). We investigate the characteristics and limitations of these statistical tools; finally, we appeal for a wider adoption of methodologies borrowed from other research fields, like for example those especially designed to deal with binary data.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

Substances

LinkOut - more resources