Cultural and environmental factors interact in determining the genetic structure of human populations. Bio-demographic investigations of ethnic minorities are able to disentangle the influences that these two components have on the evolution of the genetic structure of a population. The ethnic minority of the Arbëreshe of the province of Cosenza (Calabria, southern Italy) is analyzed in this pa...

“Small samples of skin were collected from southern right whales across New Zealand and Australia using a stainless-steel biopsy dart fired from a modified veterinary capture rifle31 or deployed from a crossbow32. Samples were collected from Bremer Bay/Doubtful Island Bay, Western Australia in 1994 and 1995 as previously described23, and Cape Jervis/Encounter Bay, South Australia, Warrnambool a...

Inferring the origin, population structure, and demographic history of a species is a major objective of population genetics. Although many organisms have been analyzed, the genetic structures of subdivided populations are not well understood. Here we analyze Drosophila ananassae, a highly substructured, cosmopolitan, and human-commensal species distributed in the tropical, subtropical, and mil...

Recurrent cycles of climatic change during the Quaternary period have dramatically affected the population genetic structure of many species. We reconstruct the recent demographic history of the coyote (Canis latrans) through the use of Bayesian techniques to examine the effects of Late Quaternary climatic perturbations on the genetic structure of a highly mobile generalist species. Our analysi...

bla(VEB-6) was found on the Proteus mirabilis chromosome in a context similar to those of bla(VEB-1a) and bla(VEB-1b), in a truncated gene cassette flanked by 135-bp elements and duplications of the 3'-conserved segment of class 1 integrons. A linked aacA4-aadB-dfrA1-orfC cassette array includes components of Tn1331, illustrating the complex mosaicism of multiresistance regions.

Political sophistication is a concept that encompasses political reasoning, the coherence of people's issue attitudes, and their knowledge of political processes. To what extent is political sophistication affected by genes and environments? Do these distinct but related measures of sophistication share a common genetic structure? We analyze survey data collected from participants in the Minnes...

Throughout the greatest part of our evolutionary history, we were living in small and isolated tribal communities (1). Such a set-up ensured better survival in harsh environments and created distinctive genetic structure of groups that maintained sufficient level of isolation from one another. The traces of such events are clearly visible even today. For example, we are able to discern genetic ...

Theoretical calculations and population cage data are presented to illustrate the use of compound chromosomes to change the genetic structure of insect populations.

BACKGROUND The isonymic method has been amply used to assess the approximate genetic structure of human communities. The objective of the study was to evaluate the magnitude of genetic isolation and inbreeding customs in 57 communities from three rural municipalities of Honduras using isonymy techniques. METHODS The list of 408 different surnames from 20712 voters registered in the national e...