Balding–Nichols model

In population genetics, the Balding–Nichols model is a statistical description of the allele frequencies in the components of a sub-divided population. With background allele frequency p the allele frequencies, in sub-populations separated by Wright's F_ST F, are distributed according to independent draws from

${\displaystyle B\left({\frac {1-F}{F}}p,{\frac {1-F}{F}}(1-p)\right)}$

where B is the Beta distribution. This distribution has mean p and variance Fp(1 – p).

The model is due to David Balding and Richard Nichols and is widely used in the forensic analysis of DNA profiles and in population models for genetic epidemiology.