Microsatellite evolution in modern humans: a comparison of two data sets from the same populations

ABSTRACT

We genotyped 64 dinucleotide microsatellite repeats in individuals from populations that represent all inhabited continents. Microsatellite summary statistics are reported for these data, as well as for a data set that includes 28 out of 30 loci studied by Bowcock et al. (1994) in the same individuals. For both data sets, diversity statistics such as heterozygosity, number of alleles per locus, and number of private alleles per locus produced the highest values in Africans, intermediate values in Europeans and Asians, and low values in Americans. Evolutionary trees of populations based on genetic distances separated groups from different continents. Corresponding trees were topologically similar for the two data sets, with the exception that the (δμ)² genetic distance reliably distinguished groups from different continents for the larger data set, but not for the smaller one. Consistent with our results from diversity statistics and from evolutionary trees, population growth statistics S_k and β, which seem particularly useful for indicating recent and ancient population size changes, confirm a model of human evolution in which human populations expand in size and through space following the departure of a small group from Africa.