The ethics and logistics of field-based genetic paternity studies

Scelza, Brooke A.; Atkinson, Elizabeth G.; Prall, Sean P.; McElreath, Richard; Sheehama, Jacob; Henn, Brenna M.

doi:10.1017/ehs.2020.23

Cited by 4 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 98 publications

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“…The pedigrees in this community are extremely reticulated (Swinford et al, 2022 ). This is likely due to the practice of concurrency which leads to a very high rate extra‐pair‐paternity (Scelza et al, 2020 ). In addition, the practice of fosterage is very common.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…ROH do not always follow this distinct stepwise pattern and are dependent upon demographic factors including consanguinity and reduced effective population size (Ceballos et al, 2018 ; Pemberton et al, 2012 ), both of which have likely affected the Himba. Previous work has reported a societal preference for first‐cousin arranged marriages within the Himba (Scelza et al, 2021 ), but unmarried relationships are common and accepted, and a large proportion of births occur through either nonmarital or extra‐marital partnerships (Scelza et al, 2020 ). The Himba have also experienced a relatively recent bottleneck that reached a minimum population size approximately 12 generations ago (Swinford et al, 2022 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They are endogamous and have social norms promoting consanguineous marriage (Harpending & Pennington, 1990 ; Scelza et al, 2021 ). However, “love matches,” divorce, polygyny, and concurrent partnerships (including extra‐marital partnerships) are also common (Scelza et al, 2020 ; Scelza, 2011 ). This practice of concurrency results in a high rate of extrapair paternity (48%) and a large number of second degree relationships within the population (Scelza et al, 2020 ; Williams et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Examination of runs of homozygosity in relation to height in an endogamous Namibian population

Swinford

Gallagher

Sheehama

et al. 2022

American Journal of Biological Anthropology

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Objectives: Height is a complex, highly heritable polygenic trait subject to both genetic composition and environmental influences. Recent studies suggest that a large proportion of height heritability is determined by the cumulative effect of many low allele frequency variants across the genome. Previous research has also identified an inverse relationship between height and runs of homozygosity (ROH); however, this has yet to be examined within African populations. We aim to identify this association within the Himba, an endogamous Namibian population who are recently bottlenecked, resulting in elevated haplotype sharing and increased homozygosity.Materials and Methods: Here, we calculate the fraction of the genome composed of long runs of homozygosity (F ROH ) in a sample of 245 adults and use mixed effects models to assess its effect on height.Results: We find that Himba adults exhibit increased homozygosity. However, in contrast to previous studies in other populations, we do not find a significant effect of F ROH on height within the Himba. We further estimated heritability of height, noting both an enrichment of distant relatives and greater developmental homogeneity across households; we find that h 2 g ¼ 0:59 (SE ± 0.146), comparable to estimates reported in Europeans.Discussion: Our results may be due to other environmental variables we were not able to include, measurement error, or low statistical power, but may also imply that phenotypic expression resulting from increased homozygosity may vary from population to population.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Examination of runs of homozygosity in relation to height in an endogamous Namibian population

Swinford

Gallagher

Sheehama

et al. 2022

American Journal of Biological Anthropology

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“…However, this is not an appropriate fit for communities where formal legal obligations carry less currency than do reciprocal social relationships. Consent should, therefore, be seen as a process and a dialogue, also referred to as 'dynamic consent', not merely the collection of names and signatures [49][50][51][52].…”

Section: (B) Community Involvementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Navigating cross-cultural research: methodological and ethical considerations

et al. 2020

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The intensifying pace of research based on cross-cultural studies in the social sciences necessitates a discussion of the unique challenges of multi-sited research. Given an increasing demand for social scientists to expand their data collection beyond WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic) populations, there is an urgent need for transdisciplinary conversations on the logistical, scientific and ethical considerations inherent to this type of scholarship. As a group of social scientists engaged in cross-cultural research in psychology and anthropology, we hope to guide prospective cross-cultural researchers through some of the complex scientific and ethical challenges involved in such work: (a) study site selection, (b) community involvement and (c) culturally appropriate research methods. We aim to shed light on some of the difficult ethical quandaries of this type of research. Our recommendation emphasizes a community-centred approach, in which the desires of the community regarding research approach and methodology, community involvement, results communication and distribution, and data sharing are held in the highest regard by the researchers. We argue that such considerations are central to scientific rigour and the foundation of the study of human behaviour.

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“…Females can also benefit from greater access to mates; however, they cannot increase their lifetime reproductive output in the same manner (Hrdy 2000). Assessing male fitness is, however, challenging due to paternity uncertainty as well as the ethical challenges that accompany genetic testing (Scelza et al 2020a).…”

Section: Warfarementioning

confidence: 99%