New population-genetic simulation tools that account for shared descent among individuals, both through the coalescent and through forward-time approaches98,99,100,101, now provide an improved basis for GWA modeling. Simulation programs have incorporated newly appreciated phenomena, such as recombination hotspots102, as well as approximations and computational advances that improve the potential for simulating large genomic regions103,104,105,106. Human population-genetic data have been recently used to calibrate evolutionary models107,108,109,110,111,112; further advances in human population genetics offer the potential to make these models increasingly detailed and therefore increasingly relevant for GWA applications.
