Book
The importance of population structure and birth order specific selection in relation to the maintenance and distribution of the Rhesus blood group polymorphism in human populations: evidence that birth order specific marriage and migration patterns in a Spanish Basque village mask the opportunity for incompatibility selection
University Microfilms International • Ann Arbor, Mich. • Published In 1989 • Pages: 3, 14, 148
By: Turnbull, Harold Frederick.
Abstract
After many years of research on the Rhesus blood group system, investigators still have not found any satisfactory reasons to explain the mechanisms responsible for the maintenance and distribution of this genetic factor in the human population. This work examines various hypotheses regarding this issue and offers an alternative explanation involving the concept of birth order as an important variable affecting the polymorphism. Turnbull presents a mathematical model which permits the comparison of gene frequency effects, birth order specific selection, and population structure on the long term maintenance of this polymorphism. The results of the comparison seem to indicate that gene frequency change is clearly a function of population structure (p. viii). The theoretical implications of these findings are then examined in relation to data from an actual high fertility human population in a rural Spanish Basque village. The dissertation concludes with the presentation of a hypothetical population model for neolithic Europe which the author believes will offer a '…feasible and testable mechanism by which the origin, maintenance and current distribution of the rhesus polymorphism in Europe can be explained' (p. ix).
- HRAF PubDate
- 2000
- Region
- Europe
- Sub Region
- Southern Europe
- Document Type
- Book
- Evaluation
- Creator Type
- Physical Anthropologist
- Document Rating
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- Analyst
- John Beierle ; 1990-1991
- Field Date
- 1976, 1977
- Coverage Date
- not specified
- Coverage Place
- Ezcurra, Navarra Province, Spain
- Notes
- [by] Harold Frederick Turnbull
- UM 8119583
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 143-148)
- Thesis (Ph.D.) -- Riverside, University of California, 1981
- LCSH
- Basques