Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Genetics logoLink to Genetics
. 1995 May;140(1):275–283. doi: 10.1093/genetics/140.1.275

Reduced Mtdna Diversity in the Ngobe Amerinds of Panama

C J Kolman 1, E Bermingham 1, R Cooke 1, R H Ward 1, T D Arias 1, F Guionneau-Sinclair 1
PMCID: PMC1206555  PMID: 7635293

Abstract

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplotype diversity was determined for 46 Ngobe Amerinds sampled widely across their geographic range in western Panama. The Ngobe data were compared with mtDNA control region I sequences from two additional Amerind groups located at the northern and southern extremes of Amerind distribution, the Nuu-Chah-Nulth of the Pacific Northwest and the Chilean Mapuche and from one Na-Dene group, the Haida of the Pacific Northwest. The Ngobe exhibit the lowest mtDNA control region sequence diversity yet reported for an Amerind group. Moreover, they carry only two of the four Amerind founding lineages first described by Wallace and coworkers. We posit that the Ngobe passed through a population bottleneck caused by ethnogenesis from a small founding population and/or European conquest and colonization. Dating of the Ngobe population expansion using the HARPENDING et al. approach to the analysis of pairwise genetic differences indicates a Ngobe expansion at roughly 6800 years before present (range: 1850-14,000 years before present), a date more consistent with a bottleneck at Chibcha ethnogenesis than a conquest-based event.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (1.9 MB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Barrantes R., Smouse P. E., Mohrenweiser H. W., Gershowitz H., Azofeifa J., Arias T. D., Neel J. V. Microevolution in lower Central America: genetic characterization of the Chibcha-speaking groups of Costa Rica and Panama, and a consensus taxonomy based on genetic and linguistic affinity. Am J Hum Genet. 1990 Jan;46(1):63–84. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Excoffier L., Langaney A. Origin and differentiation of human mitochondrial DNA. Am J Hum Genet. 1989 Jan;44(1):73–85. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Excoffier L., Smouse P. E., Quattro J. M. Analysis of molecular variance inferred from metric distances among DNA haplotypes: application to human mitochondrial DNA restriction data. Genetics. 1992 Jun;131(2):479–491. doi: 10.1093/genetics/131.2.479. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Ginther C., Corach D., Penacino G. A., Rey J. A., Carnese F. R., Hutz M. H., Anderson A., Just J., Salzano F. M., King M. C. Genetic variation among the Mapuche Indians from the Patagonian region of Argentina: mitochondrial DNA sequence variation and allele frequencies of several nuclear genes. EXS. 1993;67:211–219. doi: 10.1007/978-3-0348-8583-6_17. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Horai S., Kondo R., Nakagawa-Hattori Y., Hayashi S., Sonoda S., Tajima K. Peopling of the Americas, founded by four major lineages of mitochondrial DNA. Mol Biol Evol. 1993 Jan;10(1):23–47. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a039987. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Lundstrom R., Tavaré S., Ward R. H. Estimating substitution rates from molecular data using the coalescent. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1992 Jul 1;89(13):5961–5965. doi: 10.1073/pnas.89.13.5961. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Marjoram P., Donnelly P. Pairwise comparisons of mitochondrial DNA sequences in subdivided populations and implications for early human evolution. Genetics. 1994 Feb;136(2):673–683. doi: 10.1093/genetics/136.2.673. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Nei M., Roychoudhury A. K. Sampling variances of heterozygosity and genetic distance. Genetics. 1974 Feb;76(2):379–390. doi: 10.1093/genetics/76.2.379. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Nei M., Tajima F. DNA polymorphism detectable by restriction endonucleases. Genetics. 1981 Jan;97(1):145–163. doi: 10.1093/genetics/97.1.145. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Rogers A. R., Harpending H. Population growth makes waves in the distribution of pairwise genetic differences. Mol Biol Evol. 1992 May;9(3):552–569. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a040727. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Santos M., Ward R. H., Barrantes R. mtDNA variation in the Chibcha Amerindian Huetar from Costa Rica. Hum Biol. 1994 Dec;66(6):963–977. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Shields G. F., Schmiechen A. M., Frazier B. L., Redd A., Voevoda M. I., Reed J. K., Ward R. H. mtDNA sequences suggest a recent evolutionary divergence for Beringian and northern North American populations. Am J Hum Genet. 1993 Sep;53(3):549–562. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Thompson E. A., Neel J. V., Smouse P. E., Barrantes R. Microevolution of the Chibcha-speaking peoples of lower Central America: rare genes in an Amerindian complex. Am J Hum Genet. 1992 Sep;51(3):609–626. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Torroni A., Chen Y. S., Semino O., Santachiara-Beneceretti A. S., Scott C. R., Lott M. T., Winter M., Wallace D. C. mtDNA and Y-chromosome polymorphisms in four Native American populations from southern Mexico. Am J Hum Genet. 1994 Feb;54(2):303–318. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Torroni A., Neel J. V., Barrantes R., Schurr T. G., Wallace D. C. Mitochondrial DNA "clock" for the Amerinds and its implications for timing their entry into North America. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1994 Feb 1;91(3):1158–1162. doi: 10.1073/pnas.91.3.1158. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Ward R. H., Frazier B. L., Dew-Jager K., Päbo S. Extensive mitochondrial diversity within a single Amerindian tribe. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1991 Oct 1;88(19):8720–8724. doi: 10.1073/pnas.88.19.8720. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Ward R. H., Redd A., Valencia D., Frazier B., Päbo S. Genetic and linguistic differentiation in the Americas. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1993 Nov 15;90(22):10663–10667. doi: 10.1073/pnas.90.22.10663. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Genetics are provided here courtesy of Oxford University Press

RESOURCES