  Studying how diverse human populations are related is of historical and
anthropological interest, in addition to providing a realistic null model for
testing for signatures of natural selection or disease associations.
Furthermore, understanding the demographic histories of other species is
playing an increasingly important role in conservation genetics. A number of
statistical methods have been developed to infer population demographic
histories using whole-genome sequence data, with recent advances focusing on
allowing for more flexible modeling choices, scaling to larger data sets, and
increasing statistical power. Here we review coalescent hidden Markov models, a
powerful class of population genetic inference methods that can effectively
utilize linkage disequilibrium information. We highlight recent advances, give
advice for practitioners, point out potential pitfalls, and present possible
future research directions.
