Patrilineal populations show more male transmission of reproductive success than cognatic populations in Central Asia, which reduces their genetic diversity.

Objective: The extent to which social organization of human societies impacts the patterns of genetic diversity remains an open question. Here, we investigate the transmission of reproductive success in patrilineal and cognatic populations from Central Asia using a coalescent approach.

Methods: We performed a study on the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y chromosome polymorphism of patrilineal and cognatic populations from Central Asia.

Genetic diversity and the emergence of ethnic groups in Central Asia.

Background: In this study, we used genetic data that we collected in Central Asia, in addition to data from the literature, to understand better the origins of Central Asian groups at a fine-grained scale, and to assess how ethnicity influences the shaping of genetic differences in the human species. We assess the levels of genetic differentiation between ethnic groups on one hand and between populations of the same ethnic group on the other hand with mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal data from several populations per ethnic group from the two major linguistic groups in Central Asia.

Results: Our results show that there are more differences between populations of the same ethnic group than between ethnic groups for the Y chromosome, whereas the opposite is observed for mtDNA in the Turkic group.