ArticlePLoS genetics2006
Matrilineal fertility inheritance detected in hunter-gatherer populations using the imbalance of gene genealogies.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2006. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Comparing ARG Inference Methods Under Transmission of Reproductive Success: Tree Imbalance Matters.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Tree balance in phylogenetic models.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- European Roma groups show complex West Eurasian admixture footprints and a common South Asian genetic origin.PLoS genetics · 2019Article
- Cultural Innovations Influence Patterns of Genetic Diversity in Northwestern Amazonia.Molecular biology and evolution · 2018Article
- Detecting Recent Positive Selection with a Single Locus Test Bipartitioning the Coalescent Tree.Genetics · 2018Article
- Effects of the population pedigree on genetic signatures of historical demographic events.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2016Article
- Competition for Cooperation: variability, benefits and heritability of relational wealth in hunter-gatherers.Scientific reports · 2016Article
- Sociocultural behavior, sex-biased admixture, and effective population sizes in Central African Pygmies and non-Pygmies.Molecular biology and evolution · 2013Article
- Article
- Genomic data reveal a complex making of humans.PLoS genetics · 2012Review
- Wealth transmission and inequality among hunter-gatherers.Current anthropology · 2010Article
- Sex-specific genetic structure and social organization in Central Asia: insights from a multi-locus study.PLoS genetics · 2008Article
- Correlation of intergenerational family sizes suggests a genetic component of reproductive fitness.American journal of human genetics · 2007Article
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4 authors.
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Abstract
Fertility inheritance, a phenomenon in which an individual's number of offspring is positively correlated with his or her number of siblings, is a cultural process that can have a strong impact on genetic diversity. Until now, fertility inheritance has been detected primarily using genealogical databases. In this study, we develop a new method to infer fertility inheritance from genetic data in human populations. The method is based on the reconstruction of the gene genealogy of a sample of sequences from a given population and on the computation of the degree of imbalance in this genealogy. We show indeed that this level of imbalance increases with the level of fertility inheritance, and that other phenomena such as hidden population structure are unlikely to generate a signal of imbalance in the genealogy that would be confounded with fertility inheritance. By applying our method to mtDNA samples from 37 human populations, we show that matrilineal fertility inheritance is more frequent in hunter-gatherer populations than in food-producer populations. One possible explanation for this result is that in hunter-gatherer populations, individuals belonging to large kin networks may benefit from stronger social support and may be more likely to have a large number of offspring.
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