Effective population size

The effective population size is the number of individuals that an idealised population would need to have, in order for some specified quantity of interest to be the same in the idealised population as in the real population. Idealised populations are based on unrealistic but convenient simplifications such as random mating, simultaneous birth of each new generation, constant population size, and equal numbers of children per parent. While in some simple scenarios, the effective population size can be equal to the number of breeding individuals in the population, for most quantities of interest and most real populations, the census population size N of a real population is usually larger than the effective population size Ne. The same population may have multiple effective population size

Effective population size

The effective population size is the number of individuals that an idealised population would need to have, in order for some specified quantity of interest to be the same in the idealised population as in the real population. Idealised populations are based on unrealistic but convenient simplifications such as random mating, simultaneous birth of each new generation, constant population size, and equal numbers of children per parent. While in some simple scenarios, the effective population size can be equal to the number of breeding individuals in the population, for most quantities of interest and most real populations, the census population size N of a real population is usually larger than the effective population size Ne. The same population may have multiple effective population size