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Admixed ancestry and stratification of Quebec regional populations
Author(s) -
Bherer Claude,
Labuda Damian,
RoyGag MarieHélène,
Houde Louis,
Tremblay Marc,
Vézina Hélène
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
american journal of physical anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1096-8644
pISSN - 0002-9483
DOI - 10.1002/ajpa.21424
Subject(s) - population stratification , kinship , geography , population , immigration , stratification (seeds) , evolutionary biology , demography , genetic epidemiology , genealogy , biology , economic geography , genetics , gene , sociology , anthropology , history , seed dormancy , botany , germination , archaeology , dormancy , genotype , single nucleotide polymorphism
Population stratification results from unequal, nonrandom genetic contribution of ancestors and should be reflected in the underlying genealogies. In Quebec, the distribution of Mendelian diseases points to local founder effects suggesting stratification of the contemporary French Canadian gene pool. Here we characterize the population structure through the analysis of the genetic contribution of 7,798 immigrant founders identified in the genealogies of 2,221 subjects partitioned in eight regions. In all but one region, about 90% of gene pools were contributed by early French founders. In the eastern region where this contribution was 76%, we observed higher contributions of Acadians, British and American Loyalists. To detect population stratification from genealogical data, we propose an approach based on principal component analysis (PCA) of immigrant founders' genetic contributions. This analysis was compared with a multidimensional scaling of pairwise kinship coefficients. Both methods showed evidence of a distinct identity of the northeastern and eastern regions and stratification of the regional populations correlated with geographical location along the St‐Lawrence River. In addition, we observed a West‐East decreasing gradient of diversity. Analysis of PC‐correlated founders illustrates the differential impact of early versus latter founders consistent with specific regional genetic patterns. These results highlight the importance of considering the geographic origin of samples in the design of genetic epidemiology studies conducted in Quebec. Moreover, our results demonstrate that the study of deep ascending genealogies can accurately reveal population structure. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2011. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.