Computational Methods for Meningococcal Population Studies

The complementary fields of molecular evolution and population genetics are both complex and wide-ranging. In this chapter we review some of the basic concepts and describe the methods used to investigate bacterial population biology in general andNeisseria populations in particular. A number of recently published textbooks can be referred to for more comprehensive descriptions of general evolu tionarytheory and methods of gene-sequence analysis (1 –3 ).