RST Calc: a collection of computer programs for calculating estimates of genetic differentiation from microsatellite data and determining their significance

R ST , an analogue of F ST , provides a convenient approach for estimating levels of genetic differentiation from microsatellite data. This paper examines current approaches for calculating estimates of R ST and suggests a weighting scheme based on the transformation of allele sizes at loci across data sets. Combined within an analysis of variance framework this scheme yields an estimator of R ST analogous to the θ estimator of F ST . Software for the IBM‐PC is described which carries out such calculations and assesses the significance of R ST or Nm estimates using bootstrap and permutation tests.