Pattern and Process in Human DNA Sequence Variation

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This research will contrast and test two competing views about human genetic diversity and evolution. One view sees our genetic diversity as the outcome of founder effects that occurred as the human species expanded from Africa and filled the rest of the globe. The other view sees our genetic diversity as the outcome of genetic drift in a vast network of stable populations connected by local gene flow. To resolve these opposing views, this project will collect new DNA sequence data, and it will conduct analyses in a novel quantitative framework that is built from stochastic population genetic models. The intellectual merit of this project is that it uses a specific research design to resolve long-standing questions about human evolution and diversity. It uses the alternative scenarios for human evolution to make precise numerical predictions about patterns of DNA sequence differences. To test these predictions, the project will collect new data that are directly relevant to the questions at hand. The project's broader impact on the scientific community has several dimensions. It will produce a new body of DNA sequence data, and it will make these data publicly available in GenBank. It will develop new statistical tools that the principal investigator will distribute to other researchers free of charge. The project has a training component that will fuse the talents of graduate students with those of undergraduates. Students at both levels will help conduct the research and participate in analyses and reports. The principal investigator will use the results of this research to write an article for lay audiences on the topic of diversity and race in light of modern genomics. This article will explain to the lay public how human evolution provides a new nonracial framework to understand human differences and likeness.