Consider a population with an effective size of 4000 and 32 segregating alleles.On average,how many generations would it take for all 32 alleles to coalesce to a single,ancestral allele?
A)32
B)128
C)1000
D)16000
E)Coalescence of all 32 alleles will never occur.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The expected time to coalescence for a pair of alleles is 2N generations, where N is the effective population size. Therefore, the expected time to coalesce for all 32 alleles is:

2N(1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + ... + 1/31)

Plugging in the given values:

2(4000)(1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + ... + 1/31) = 16000 generations

Therefore, the answer is D, 16000 generations.

Consider a Population with an Effective Size of 4000 and 32