There is substantial interest in the application of different statistical methods to model and understand population genetic data. This book aims to fill the vacant niche in books dealing with the application of methods imported from computational statistics that have become very popular in the last ten years in population genetic analysis.

An introductory background on evolutionary theory is provided, complete with examples and thought-provoking questions that will enable the readers to explore the current data in this field. This text also guides the reader to understand the type of questions that can be answered by particular data sets, urging readers to discover the power that resides in this very data that can answer their questions, and warning them of the potential pitfalls. At the same time, the book provides practical information on the application of popular software packages. Readers are invited to download example data sets in search of real data on the web.