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Review
. 2009;10(11):245.
doi: 10.1186/gb-2009-10-11-245. Epub 2009 Nov 27.

Panmixia postponed: ancestry-related assortative mating in contemporary human populations

Andrew S Burrell  1 , Todd R Disotell
Affiliations
Review

Panmixia postponed: ancestry-related assortative mating in contemporary human populations

Andrew S Burrell et al. Genome Biol. 2009.

Abstract

A study of two different populations reveals that in both the choice of a spouse is non-random not only in respect of broad ethnic group but also in regard to specific ancestries within that group. The cause of this surprising bias remains unclear.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Ancestry-informative markers (AIMs) used to infer ancestry in African, European or Native American populations. Dots represent individual AIMs, and the location of the dot represents its frequency in each ancestral population. AIMs are colored according to the population they uniquely differentiate. AIM frequency data were taken from Table One of [5].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Estimated probability of ancestry in African, European and Native American populations for 20 randomly selected Mexican and Puerto Rican individuals. Ancestry estimates for each person were inferred from Figure One of [4].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Average group ancestries in African, European and Native American populations stratified by sample locality and sex. Average group ancestry data are from Table One of [4]. Note that despite the range of ancestry in Figure 2, spouse pairs are more similar than expected by chance. P.R., Puerto Rica.
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