The quantification of the relatedness within an individual’s ancestry involves determining a metric that reflects the probability of inheriting two identical alleles from a common ancestor. This metric, often represented by the symbol F, provides a numerical value representing the proportion of an individual’s loci that are homozygous due to inheritance from common ancestors. For example, a coefficient of 0 indicates no increased homozygosity due to relatedness, whereas a coefficient of 0.25 suggests a significant proportion of the individual’s genome exhibits this phenomenon.
Understanding and evaluating this value is crucial in various fields, including livestock breeding, conservation genetics, and human genetics. In breeding programs, it aids in minimizing the detrimental effects of increased homozygosity, such as reduced fitness and increased susceptibility to genetic disorders. Within conservation, it helps assess the genetic health of endangered populations and guides strategies to mitigate the consequences of small population size. Historically, its understanding emerged from the foundational principles of population genetics, providing a means to predict and manage the genetic structure of populations.
