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Record W4407349156 · doi:10.1111/mec.17670

The Idiot's Guide to Effective Population Size

2025· review· en· W4407349156 on OpenAlexaboutno aff
Robin S. Waples

Bibliographic record

VenueMolecular Ecology · 2025
Typereview
Languageen
FieldBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
TopicGenetic diversity and population structure
Canadian institutionsnot available
Fundersnot available
KeywordsIdiotRelevance (law)BiologyData sciencePopulationConstruct (python library)Effective population sizeComputer scienceGenetic diversitySociology

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

ABSTRACT This is a reference manual for the elegant, yet hideously complex concept of effective population size ( N e ), inspired by a classic, self‐published manual of automotive repair ‘for the compleat idiot’. The Guide is timely, given the recent Kunming‐Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, where 196 Parties committed to tracking genetic diversity—and estimating N e —for all species. N e is a human construct, but a useful one that allows us to capture diverse aspects of an organism's biology in a single number. The Guide collates in one location factual information about effective population size, with a focus on topics of practical relevance to scientists and managers studying real populations; it covers definition, computation and estimation of effective size, both demographically and genetically. As appropriate, the reader is directed to other primary sources for more details. A ‘Don't Do These Things’ section lists several ill‐advised approaches to dealing with N e , and an Appendix provides useful tools and practical suggestions for interested users. A special section considers both possibilities and challenges presented by the genomics revolution. Availability of vast numbers of genetic markers increases precision, but less than some might think, and simultaneously introduces new challenges involving filtering and bioinformatics processing. As annotated genomes become more common for non‐model species, opportunities are opened to address qualitatively different questions, including reconstructing historical changes in N e through time.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.003
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.009
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Theoretical or conceptual · Consensus signal: none
GenreCandidate signal: Review · Consensus signal: Review
Teacher disagreement score0.035
Threshold uncertainty score0.117

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0030.009
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0020.001
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0020.002
Bibliometrics0.0060.005
Science and technology studies0.0010.002
Scholarly communication0.0020.004
Open science0.0040.002
Research integrity0.0030.006
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0350.025

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.005
GPT teacher head0.295
Teacher spread0.290 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designTheoretical or conceptual
Domainnot available
GenreReview

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations62
Published2025
Admission routes1
Has abstractyes

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