Fine scale population structure in North America: Han et al

Angela

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Very interesting paper in Nature about North American genetic structure showing post settlement clustering. The massive data collection is from AncestryDNA.

See: Eunjung Han et al
"Clustering of 770,000 genomes reveals post-colonial population structure of North Americ"

http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14238/

"Despite strides in characterizing human history from genetic polymorphism data, progress in identifying genetic signatures of recent demography has been limited. Here we identify very recent fine-scale population structure in North America from a network of over 500 million genetic (identity-by-descent, IBD) connections among 770,000 genotyped individuals of US origin. We detect densely connected clusters within the network and annotate these clusters using a database of over 20 million genealogical records. Recent population patterns captured by IBD clustering include immigrants such as Scandinavians and French Canadians; groups with continental admixture such as Puerto Ricans; settlers such as the Amish and Appalachians who experienced geographic or cultural isolation; and broad historical trends, including reduced north-south gene flow. Our results yield a detailed historical portrait of North America after European settlement and support substantial genetic heterogeneity in the United States beyond that uncovered by previous studies."

This is Ancestry's blog post about their paper, which is interesting in its own right.
https://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry...estrydna-breakthrough-on-genetic-communities/

The maps they produce are fascinating and reproduce accurately every settlement pattern in American history from what I can tell. They've captured, for example, the fact that the Mormon church started in upstate New York, and this is the genetic source for much of the Mormon population in Utah today.

Scroll down on this large visual; there are two maps. Also, click to enlarge.
https://i2.wp.com/www.nature.com/ar...07/ncomms14238/images/w926/ncomms14238-f3.jpg

This one shows how they were able to track French Canadian immigration back to France.
http://www.nature.com/article-asset...07/ncomms14238/images/m685/ncomms14238-f4.jpg
 

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