1. ¹Department of Biology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA
2. ²Department of Biology, Reed College, Portland, OR 97202, USA
3. ³Department of Mathematics, Reed College, Portland, OR 97202, USA

Correspondence: John H Willis, E-mail: jwillis@oregon.uoregon.edu

Received 24 May 1999; Accepted 17 June 1999.

Abstract

In order to infer population structure at the individual level, we estimated individual inbreeding coefficients and examined the relationship between geographical distance and genetic relatedness from polymorphic microsatellite data for a population of Mimulus guttatus that has an intermediate selfing rate. Expected heterozygosities for five microsatellites ranged from 0.79 to 0.93. The population inbreeding coefficient was calculated to be 0.19 (SE=0.023). A method-of-moments estimator developed by Ritland (1996b) was used to estimate the distribution of inbreeding among and relatedness between individuals of a natural population. The mean individual inbreeding coefficient (F=0.16) did not differ significantly from the population-level estimate. Most of the individuals appeared to be outbred, and there were very few plants that had estimated inbreeding coefficients greater than one-half. Individuals sampled from one transect showed significantly more inbreeding than individuals sampled along the other (P=0.005). There was no apparent relationship between interplant distance (range: 0–14 m) and mean genetic relatedness between individuals. These results represent the first application of polymorphic microsatellites to estimate fine-scale genetic population structure.