Using Matched Craniometric and Genetic Data to Assess the Population Structure of Texas-Mexico Border Migrants
Date
2018-08
Authors
New, Briana
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Human population structure studies suggest that craniometric and genetic data demonstrate similar genetic distances within and between populations. However, few studies use craniometric and genetic data from the same individuals to conduct comparative analyses. Therefore, it is necessary to assess whether distance analysis methods deliver significant results when comparing craniometric and genetic data obtained from the same individuals. Using interlandmark distances (ILD) and short tandem repeats (STR) obtained from a sample of 32 Texas-Mexico migrants, this study investigates the within and between population variation of this unique data set.
Genetic distances, Procrustes plots, and Mantel tests were conducted to assess the correlation between ILD and STR data. Interindividual results suggest no significant correlation between ILD and STR data (r = -0.01, p = 0.83). Between population results demonstrate a moderate correlation between ILD and STR samples, but the relationship between distance matrices is not statistically significant (r = 0.317, p = 0.239). The results are discussed in the context of Texas-Mexico migrant population structure and the fit of matched ILD and STR data. This research is integral for not only understanding relationships within the given sample, but also for understanding the relationship between the craniometric and genetic data that biological anthropologists frequently utilize.
Description
Keywords
Human population structure, Short tandem repeats, Interlandmark distances, Migrants
Citation
New, B. (2018). Using matched craniometric and genetic data to assess the population structure of Texas-Mexico border migrants (Unpublished thesis). Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas.