Skip to main content
American Journal of Human Genetics logoLink to American Journal of Human Genetics
. 1980 May;32(3):445–452.

Kinship structure and heterozygosity on Tristan da Cunha.

E A Thompson, D F Roberts
PMCID: PMC1686059  PMID: 7386464

Abstract

Although there are many factors influencing the genotype proportions in a small population [1], a heterozygote excess, caused by avoidance of incestuous matings, will often be the expected observation. In the population of the small South-Atlantic islands of Tristan da Cunha, such an excess if observed [2], and we have investigated its origin, partitioning the population by sex and by generation. Although for such a small population the test for random pairing of genes [3, 4] is not sufficiently powerful to produce significant results, the pattern of homozygote deficiency is suggestive of avoidance of close matings. We have also investigated the effect of current nuclear family structure and family-size distribution.

Full text

PDF
449

Selected References

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

  1. Emigh T. H., Kempthorne O. A note on goodness of fit of a population to Hardy-Weinberg structure. Am J Hum Genet. 1975 Nov;27(6):778–783. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Smith C. A. Measures of homozygosity and inbreeding in populations. Ann Hum Genet. 1974 May;37(4):377–391. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-1809.1974.tb01844.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Wright S. Systems of Mating. V. General Considerations. Genetics. 1921 Mar;6(2):167–178. doi: 10.1093/genetics/6.2.167. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from American Journal of Human Genetics are provided here courtesy of American Society of Human Genetics

RESOURCES