Journal article
Human population dispersal "Out of Africa" estimated from linkage disequilibrium and allele frequencies of SNPs
BP McEvoy, JE Powell, ME Goddard, PM Visscher
Genome Research | COLD SPRING HARBOR LAB PRESS, PUBLICATIONS DEPT | Published : 2011
Abstract
Genetic and fossil evidence supports a single, recent (<200,000 yr) origin of modern Homo sapiens in Africa, followed by later population divergence and dispersal across the globe (the "Out of Africa" model). However, there is less agreement on the exact nature of this migration event and dispersal of populations relative to one another. We use the empirically observed genetic correlation structure (or linkage disequilibrium) between 242,000 genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 17 global populations to reconstruct two key parameters of human evolution: effective population size (Ne) and population divergence times (T). A linkage disequilibrium (LD)-based approach allows chan..
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Awarded by Australian National Health and Medical Research Council
Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
This work was supported by grants from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (grants 389892 and 613601) and the Australian Research Council (grant DP0770096). We thank Nick Martin, Leena Peltonen, Jaako Kaprio, Tim Spector, Kirsten Ohm Kyvik, Dorret Boomsma, and Nancy Pederson for access to the GenomEUtwin genotype data; and Bill Hill and Nick Martin for helpful discussion and comments on the manuscript. For the purpose of QIMR policy, "equal contributions'' of B.P.M. and J.E.P. equates to joint first authorship.