Boundaries and clines in the West Eurasian Y‐chromosome landscape: Insights from the European part of Russia

Abstract

Previous studies of Y chromosome variation have revealed that western Europe, the Volga-Ural region, and the Caucasus differ dramatically with respect to Y-SNP haplogroup composition. The European part of Russia is situated in between these three regions; to determine if these differences reflect clines or boundaries in the Y-chromosome landscape, we analyzed 12 Y-SNPs in 545 males from 12 populations from the European part of Russia. The majority of Russian Y chromosomes (from 74% to 94%) belong to three Y chromosomal lineages [I-M170, R1a1-M17, and N3-TAT] that are also frequent in the rest of east Europe, north Europe, and/or in the Volga-Ural region. We find significant but low correlations between haplogroup frequencies and the geographic location of populations, suggesting gradual change in the Y chromosome gene pool across western Eurasia. However, we also find some significant boundaries between populations, suggesting that both isolation and migration have influenced the Y chromosome landscape.

Y-Chromosome distribution within the geo-linguistic landscape of northwestern Russia

“…23 The distributions and clinal frequency gradients of N1c support the hybridization hypothesis for Slavic Russians and argue for considerably more genetic signals from Uralic tribes in northwestern Russian groups than in the rest of the eastern Slavic domain. It should be noted that although statistically significant correlations are observed between linguistics as well as geography and genetics in the AMOVA, a closer relationship between geography and genetics (8.81% in the Among Groups comparison versus 7.87% in the Among Populations Within-Groups comparison) than between linguistics and genetics (6.51% variance attributable to the Among Groups comparison versus 10.10% to the Among Populations Within-Groups estimate) as has been stated previously, 15,28,29,50 is seen when populations throughout Eurasia are compared at the transcontinental level. When only members of the Balto-Slavic linguistic branch of the Indo-European language family and Uralic groups are compared, neither linguistic nor geographic ties appear to define the genetic structure of the populations in question, suggesting that other factors besides geographical (10).…”

“…Haplogroup G is confined to the Caucasus and the Middle East and not detected in the northern groups (Slavic and other Eastern European populations) despite the lack of major geographical barrier between the northern Caucasus and the aforementioned areas. Conversely, haplogroup N is not observed within the Caucasus despite its high frequencies and widespread distribution throughout northeastern Europe, Siberia, and Central Asia (these apparent disconnections have also been reported by Fechner et al 50 ). Phylogenetic relationships also illustrate a disconnection between northeastern European populations, which despite their proximal geographical locations map at opposite ends of the plot (Figure 3), suggesting linguistic, and/or ethnic obstacles to gene flow.…”

“…The Slavic When a continentally based AMOVA was conducted, variance components suggest a greater affinity for geographical influences rather than for linguistic ties (Table 2), supporting earlier findings. 15,29,50 However, when only…”

Demographic history of Canary Islands male gene-pool: replacement of native lineages by European

“…This haplogroup is the only major clade of the Y-chromosome phylogeny that is widespread over Europe and almost absent elsewhere, suggesting that it originated there [ 49 ]. It is especially abundant in the eastern Mediterranean area, with its highest frequencies in the Balkans [ 50 ]. Therefore, the presence of this European Y-chromosome lineage in the indigenous pool is compatible with a direct Mediterranean input, or to a more ancient demic influx from Europe to N Africa than has yet been proposed [ 17 ].…”

A western Eurasian male is found in 2000‐year‐old elite Xiongnu cemetery in Northeast Mongolia

“…The MNX3 West Eurasian male has R1a1 of Y-SNP and U2e1 mtDNA. R1a is the most common haplogroup in Europe Kayser et al, 2005;Wetton et al, 2005;Fechner et al, 2008;Volgyi et al, 2009). It shows decreasing frequencies from North to South Europe (Wells, 2007) and from Central toward South Asia (Wells et al, 2001).…”