METASIM 1.0: an individual-based environment for simulating population genetics of complex population dynamics

METASIM provides a flexible environment in which to perform individual-based population genetic simulations. A wide range of landscape-level dynamics, population structures, and within-population demographies can be represented using the framework implemented in this software. In addition, temporal variation in all demographic characteristics can be simulated, both deterministically and stochastically. Such simulations can be used to produce null distributions of genotypes under realistic conditions. These genotypic data can then be used by a variety of analytical programs to develop null expectations of any population genetic statistic estimated from genotypic data.