Significance of Pi

[John M. Hawdon]

Hello,

	I am a struggling newbie to the molecular evolution field, and I was
wondering what exactly is the significance of a particular genetic
distance value?  Is this essentially a "percentage difference" estimate,
corrected for multiple hits, so that a value of say 0.03 means that the
sequences are recently divergent, whereas a value of 0.5 indicates a
longer period since a common ancestor? 

Thanks for your help.
-- 
John M. Hawdon, Ph.D.                    
Medical Helminthology Laboratory         
Yale University School of Medicine      
501 LEPH   60 College St.                    
New Haven CT 06520                       
tel: (203) 737-2926  Fax: (203) 785-7552 
john.hawdon at yale.edu