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Genetic evidence for a higher female migration rate in humans.
Abstract
Mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosome have been used extensively in the study of modern human origins and other phylogenetic questions, but not in the context of their sex-specific modes of transmission. mtDNA is transmitted exclusively by females, whereas the Y chromosome is passed only among males. As a result, differences in the reproductive output or migration rate of males and females will influence the geographic patterns and relative level of genetic diversity on the Y chromosome, autosomes and mtDNA (ref. 1). We have found that Y chromosome variants tend to be more localized geographically than those of mtDNA and the autosomes. The fraction of variation within human populations for Y chromosome single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) is 35.5%, versus 80-85% for the autosomes and mtDNA (refs 6-8). A higher female than male migration rate (via patrilocality, the tendency for a wife to move into her husband's natal household) explains most of this discrepancy, because diverse Y chromosomes would enter a population at a lower rate than mtDNA or the autosomes. Polygyny may also contribute, but the reduction of variation within populations that we measure for the Y chromosome, relative to the autosomes and mitochondrial DNA, is of such magnitude that differences in the effective population sizes of the sexes alone are insufficient to produce the observation.
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“Most studies converge towards the notion that among populations, women are genetically less structured than men.”
From Sex-Specific Genetic Structure and Social Organization in Central Asia: Insights from a Multi-Locus Study (2008) · cites this paper as [3]
In the citing paper
“However, the influence of such processes on genetic structure has often been considered as negligible, since realistic rates of polygyny cannot create large differences in male and female genetic structure [3],[5],[14].”
From Sex-Specific Genetic Structure and Social Organization in Central Asia: Insights from a Multi-Locus Study (2008) · cites this paper as [3]
In the citing paper
“A large number of studies have found that the level of differentiation was greater for the Y chromosome than for mtDNA, both at a global [3] and a local scale [4]–[11], for a review see [12].”
From Sex-Specific Genetic Structure and Social Organization in Central Asia: Insights from a Multi-Locus Study (2008) · cites this paper as [3]
In the citing paper
“Our results, based on the X chromosome and the autosomes, also confirm previous analyses based on the mtDNA and the NRY, showing that men are genetically more structured than women in other patrilocal populations [3]–[10], [14]–[17]”
From Sex-Specific Genetic Structure and Social Organization in Central Asia: Insights from a Multi-Locus Study (2008) · cites this paper as [3]
In the citing paper
“This result is consistent with previous studies indicating that polygyny alone is expected to have a reduced effect on genetic diversity22,87, and would probably not be sufficient on its own to account for the male effective population size bottleneck reported by Karmin et al.1.”
From Patrilineal segmentary systems provide a peaceful explanation for the post-Neolithic Y-chromosome bottleneck (2024) · cites this paper as [87]
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Research works printed but not linked: 30
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Metadata
- Authors
- Seielstad, M. T., Minch, E., & Cavalli-Sforza, L. L.
- Venue
- Nature Genetics
- Published
- 1998-11
- Volume
- 20
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 278-280
- ISSN
- 1061-4036
- 1546-1718
- DOI
- 10.1038/3088
- Cited by
- 450
- References
- 0
- Language
- en
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
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