Also, see the bioinformatics page for a variety of software applications designed to make the analysis of fAFLP data more straightforward. In 1995, Dr. Floyd Hayes, University of the West Indies, initiated a natural history study of White-tailed Sabrewings in Tobago. Known as Project Sabrewing , the first part of the study was designed to assess current population numbers to gauge recovery success. In 1997, Floyd and I devised an additional project to examine the magnitude of any genetic bottleneck caused by Hurricane Flora. Project Sabrewing also benefits greatly from the assistance of students in Floyd's Tropical Ecology class.
Mating systems affect greatly the degree of allele persistence, especially in small populations.
It is well known that the genetic variability of small populations decreases when alleles are lost by random sampling effects. In the absence of mutation to generate new genetic variability or selective forces to maintain it, individuals within the population eventually reach a state of genetic isogenicity with only a single allele remaining at each locus. In practice, an exact description of pure random drift at a multi-allelic locus is very complicated. However, if we consider only the number of alleles remaining at a given generation rather than their frequencies, the problem conveniently reduces to a two allele fixation model. I also have a strong interest in avian systematics and phylogenetic reconstruction.