SUMMARY: SPLATCHE3 simulates genetic data under a variety of spatially explicit evolutionary scenarios, extending previous versions of the framework. The new capabilities include long-distance migration, spatially and temporally heterogeneous short-scale migrations, alternative hybridization models, simulation of serial samples of genetic data and a large variety of DNA mutation models. These implementations have been applied independently to various studies, but grouped together in the current version. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: SPLATCHE3 is written in C++ and is freely available for non-commercial use from the website http://www.splatche.com/splatche3. It includes console versions for Linux, MacOs and Windows and a user-friendly GUI for Windows, as well as detailed documentation and ready-to-use examples.

SUMMARY: SPLATCHE2 is a program to simulate the demography of populations and the resulting molecular diversity for a wide range of evolutionary scenarios. The spatially explicit simulation framework can account for environmental heterogeneity and fluctuations, and it can manage multiple population sources. A coalescent-based approach is used to generate genetic markers mostly used in population genetics studies (DNA sequences, SNPs, STRs or RFLPs). Various combinations of independent, fully or partially linked genetic markers can be produced under a recombination model based on the ancestral recombination graph. Competition between two populations (or species) can also be simulated with user-defined levels of admixture between the two populations. SPLATCHE2 may be used to generate the expected genetic diversity under complex demographic scenarios and can thus serve to test null hypotheses. For model parameter estimation, SPLATCHE2 can easily be integrated into an Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) framework. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: SPLATCHE2 is a C++ program compiled for Windows and Linux platforms. It is freely available at www.splatche.com, together with its related documentation and example data. CONTACT: [email protected]