The TMRCA of general genealogies in populations with deterministically varying size

Alejandro H. Wences, Peñaloza, Lizbeth, Steinrücken, Matthias and Siri-Jégousse, Arno

Theoretical Population Biology, 2025, vol. 165, issue C, 1-9

Abstract: We study the time to the most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) of a sample of finite size in a wide class of genealogical models for populations with deterministically varying size. This is made possible by recently developed results on inhomogeneous phase-type random variables, allowing us to obtain the density and the moments of the TMRCA of time-dependent coalescent processes in terms of matrix formulas. We also provide matrix simplifications permitting a more straightforward calculation. With these results, the TMRCA provides an explanatory variable to distinguish different evolutionary scenarios, and to infer model parameters.

Keywords: Coalescent theory; Phase-type theory; Variable size population (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:thpobi:v:165:y:2025:i:c:p:1-9

DOI: 10.1016/j.tpb.2025.06.002

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