Dear Colleagues,

Some expressed that I share what I found from the helpful network. And
indeed it was helpful, and I am particularly thankful to the large
proportion of students who answered my plea.

I went straight to using AFLPdat, this runs in R, but don't be afraid
the AFLPdat user-manual was very helpful and it allowed conversions
into many of the currently used population genetic programs...however
the link is no longer correct and after a little help from Google the
following link is where the program can be found:

http://www.nhm.uio.no/forskning-samlinger/forskning/forskningsgrupper/ncb/

2 other conversion programs were recommended, but I did not try these.

The easiest way for me was using FAMD (http://www.famd.me.uk/famd.html)
which uses a very simple input file and gives you Structure and Arlequin
outputs.

a very convenient data converter you might want to give a try.
http://www.cmpg.unibe.ch/software/PGDSpider/

HOWEVER, one of the biggest hurdles is getting the data (once scored
in GeneMapper, or GeneMarker) into EXCEL and back out again in a useful
format (ie format for AFLPdat). If anyone knows a way of extending the
number of Columns in EXCEL to more than 256 this would help tremendously,
as my datasets were 1440 and 1808...which means 4 blocks of data (not very
useful) or having individuals as columns (if that is under 256!)...what
I had to do is use the macros in EXCEL to save a text file, this was a
very useful function but I have a 'macro-expert' here.

Anyway, thanks again and hope this is useful to someone.

Best wishes,

Mark.

Dr. Mark I. Stevens
South Australian Museum
North Terrace, Adelaide SA 5000
GPO Box 234 [courier address: Natural Science Centre, Morgan Thomas Lane
(off Kintore Ave)]
Phone: +61-8-82077685
Mob: 0466672727
Fax: +61-8-82077222
Email: Stevens.Mark@saugov.sa.gov.au
http://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au

and

Honorary Academic Associate
School of Biological Sciences
Flinders University of South Australia
Adelaide, SA 5001
Australia
http://www.scieng.flinders.edu.au/biology/people/academic/stevens_m/

Stevens.Mark@saugov.sa.gov.au