title: TECHNICAL ADVANCES: A maximum-likelihood relatedness estimator allowing for negative relatedness values.
abstract: Previously reported maximum-likelihood pairwise relatedness (r) estimator of Thompson and Milligan (M) was extended to allow for negative r estimates under the regression interpretation of r. This was achieved by establishing the equivalency of the likelihoods used in the kinship program and the likelihoods of Thompson. The new maximum-likelihood (ML) estimator was evaluated by Monte Carlo simulations. It was found that the new ML estimator became unbiased significantly faster compared to the original M estimator when the amount of genotype information was increased. The effects of allele frequency estimation errors on the new and existing relatedness estimators were also considered.
authors.affiliation: School of Mathematics, Physics & Information Technology, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland 4811, Australia, Department of Behavioural Ecology, Zoological Institute, University of Bern, Hinterkappelen, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Dmitry A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Konovalov
authors.forename: Dik
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Heg