Moment closure in a Moran model with recombination

Abstract

We extend the Moran model with single-crossover recombination to include general recombination and mutation. We show that, in the case without resampling, the expectations of products of marginal processes defined via partitions of sites form a closed hierarchy, which is exhaustively described by a finite system of differential equations. One thus has the exceptional situation of moment closure in a nonlinear system. Surprisingly, this property is lost when resampling (i.e., genetic drift) is included.