Mutation count on a neutral coalescent tree

ID: mutation-count-on-a-neutral-coalescent-tree

In Kingman's coalescent, the epoch with ancestral lineages lasts , independently across epochs. If each lineage carries an independent Poisson process of mutations with rate , its epoch mutation count satisfies . The total mutation count is . Under the infinite sites mutation model, this also counts segregating sites; without that assumption it still counts mutation events, which need not correspond one-to-one to observed polymorphisms.

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