Inheritance of Genetic Material in an Admixed Population with Two Ancestral Populations
Colors indicate the ancestral origin of genetic material across a single chromosome, with two ancestral populations (orange, blue). In each generation, genetic material is passed from parents to offspring, with crossover events leading to chromosomes with a mixture of genetic material from the parent’s maternal and paternal chromosomes. Over time, blocks of ancestry are broken up by additional crossover events, resulting in a mosaic of segments of different ancestral origins. We refer to the locus-specific ancestral origin of genetic material as local ancestry, while admixture proportion or global ancestry refers to the overall (genome-wide) proportion of genetic material inherited from each ancestral population.