Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA), is a

statistical model A statistical model is a mathematical model that embodies a set of statistical assumptions concerning the generation of Sample (statistics), sample data (and similar data from a larger Statistical population, population). A statistical model repre ...

for the molecular algorithm in a single

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

, typically

biological Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, and distribution of ...

. The name and model are inspired by ANOVA. The method was developed by Laurent Excoffier, Peter Smouse and

Joseph Quattro Joseph is a common male name, derived from the Hebrew (). "Joseph" is used, along with " Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the modern-day Nordic count ...

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

in 1992. Since developing AMOVA, Excoffier has written a program for running such analyses. This program, which runs on

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

, is called Arlequin and is freely available on Excoffier's website. There are also implementations in R language in the ade4 and the pegas packages, both available on CRAN (Comprehensive R Archive Network). Another implementation is in Info-Gen, which also runs on

. The student version is free and fully functional. Native language of the application is Spanish but an English version is also available. An additional free statistical package, GenAlEx,Peakall, R. and Smouse P.E. (2012) GenAlEx 6.5: genetic analysis in Excel. Population genetic software for teaching and research-an update. Bioinformatics 28, 2537–2539. is geared toward teaching as well as research and allows for complex genetic analyses to be employed and compared within the commonly used Microsoft Excel interface. This software allows for calculation of analyses such as AMOVA, as well as comparisons with other types of closely related statistics including F-statistics and Shannon's index, and more.

References

External links

Arlequin 3 website

Online AMOVA Calculation for Y-STR Data

Info-Gen website

Population genetics Molecular biology Analysis of variance {{statistics-stub