1. Statistical Power & Representativeness:
More sequences increase confidence in the population's genetic structure and diversity. A small sample may not capture rare alleles or meaningful variation.
2. Variance Estimation:
With more samples, measures of genomic variance, heterozygosity, and allelic richness become more accurate. This improves your ability to assess inbreeding, bottlenecks, or drift.
3. Predictive Modeling:
Tools like PCA, ADMIXTURE, or FST-based clustering perform best with larger datasets. It also strengthens future outlook assessments (e.g., extinction risk, recovery potential).
Viability Table: