A pairwise relatedness estimator for polyploids

Studies in genetics and ecology often require estimates of relatedness coefficients based on genetic marker data. Many diploid estimators have been developed using either method-of-moments or maximum-likelihood estimates. However, there are no relatedness estimators for polyploids. The development of a moment estimator for polyploids with polysomic inheritance, which simultaneously incorporates the two-gene relatedness coefficient and various higher-order' coefficients, is described here. The performance of the estimator is compared to other estimators under a variety of conditions. When using a small number of loci, the estimator is biased because of an increase in ill-conditioned matrices. However, the estimator becomes asymptotically unbiased with large numbers of loci. The ambiguity of polyploid heterozygotes (when balanced heterozygotes cannot be distinguished from unbalanced heterozygotes) is also considered; as with low numbers of loci, genotype ambiguity leads to bias. A software, PolyRelatedness, implementing this method and supporting a maximum ploidy of 8 is provided.