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Related Experiment Videos

When did the human population size start increasing?

J D Wall1, M Przeworski

  • 1Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA. jdwall@midway.uchicago.edu

Genetics
|August 5, 2000
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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Human population growth models are tested using nuclear DNA. Evidence suggests recent population expansion, potentially influenced by natural selection, rather than ancient, long-term growth.

Area of Science:

  • Population genetics
  • Human evolutionary studies
  • Genomic data analysis

Background:

  • Understanding human population history is crucial for interpreting genomic data.
  • Previous studies using mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) suggested significant long-term population growth.
  • Nuclear DNA provides a more comprehensive dataset for demographic inference.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To analyze human nuclear DNA sequence data to infer demographic history.
  • To test models of constant population size followed by exponential growth.
  • To reconcile discrepancies between nuclear and mtDNA-derived demographic inferences.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of frequency spectra from human nuclear DNA sequence datasets.
  • Application of population genetic models, including constant size with exponential growth.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Comparison of model fit across African and non-African populations.
  • Evaluation of demographic models incorporating bottlenecks and population subdivision.

    • Main Results:

    • Simple models of constant population size with long-term exponential growth were rejected for a significant portion of the largest nuclear DNA datasets.
    • Models of constant size with no growth were rejected for several non-African samples.
    • Long-term growth (50-100 kya) was rejected for both African and non-African samples under simple models.
    • More complex demographic models (bottleneck, subdivision) showed better compatibility with long-term growth.
    • Evidence suggests that natural selection acting on specific loci may obscure demographic signals.

    Conclusions:

    • The available nuclear DNA data are more consistent with recent population size expansion (e.g., Upper Paleolithic) than with ancient, long-term growth.
    • Natural selection acting on specific genetic loci may explain deviations from simple demographic models.
    • Further research is needed to disentangle the effects of demography and selection in human genomic data.