Software

Rmetasim is a front-end for the metasim engine that is implemented as a package that runs in the statistical computing environment R . This environment is much easier to use than the original form of the program.

Rmetasim is now in version 1.1.005 and is available from CRAN . It is easy to install on any OS that runs R through the command-line 'install.packages()' command or through the menu-driven package managers.
More recent (bug-fix and bleeding edge) versions are available here as:

windows XP binary (compiled with R-2.4.0)
mac OSX binary (compiled with R-2.4.0)
linux binary (compiled with R-devel)
source code

Example inputs for Rmetasim.
- Generalized life-cycle of a dioecious organism:
  - Life-cycle diagram
  - Rmetasim code to implement this demography with two sequence loci.

metasim is the underlying engine in rmetasim. It 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. The basic idea is documented in Strand (2002).

metasim as a non-R package is no longer supported, see rmetasim