Unexpected NRY Chromosome Variation in Northern Island Melanesia

Abstract

To investigate the paternal population history of populations in Northern Island Melanesia, 685 paternally unrelated males from 36 populations in this region and New Guinea were analyzed at 14 regionally informative binary markers and 7 short tandem repeat (STR) loci from the nonrecombining portion of the Y chromosome. Three newly defined binary markers (K6-P79, K7-P117, and M2-P87) aided in identifying considerable heterozygosity that would have otherwise gone undetected. Judging from their geographic distributions and network analyses of their associated STR profiles, 4 lineages appear to have developed in this region and to be of considerable age: K6-P79, K7-P117, M2-P87, and M2a-P22. The origins of K5-M230 and M-M4 are also confirmed as being located further west, probably in New Guinea. In the 25 adequately sampled populations, the number of different haplogroups ranged from 2 in the single most isolated group (the Aita of Bougainville), to 9, and measures of molecular diversity were generally not particularly low. The resulting pattern contradicts earlier findings that suggested far lower male-mediated diversity and gene exchange rates in the region. However, these earlier studies had not included the newly defined haplogroups. We could only identify a very weak signal of recent male Southeast Asian genetic influence (<10%), which was almost entirely restricted to Austronesian (Oceanic)-speaking groups. This contradicts earlier assumptions on the ancestral composition of these groups and requires a revision of hypotheses concerning the settlement of the islands of the central Pacific, which commenced from this region.

Human genetics of the Kula Ring: Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA variation in the Massim of Papua New Guinea

“…Concerning NRY, the Solomon Islanders harbor more diverse NRY lineages than the Massim; for example, several C, K, M and O lineages present in the Solomon Islanders 18 are absent from our Massim sample, but are also found in the Bismarck Archipelago. 14 Similarly for mtDNA, the Northern Melanesian lineages M27 and M28 are found in the Solomons 18 and in the Bismarcks, 15 but not in our Massim sample. Thus, it is likely that there were direct links between the Bismarcks and the Solomons that bypassed the Massim region.…”

“…In reconstructing the demographic history of Oceania, our results not only fill an important gap between previous genetic studies on the mainland of New Guinea in the west, 9-13 the Bismarck Archipelago in the north [14][15][16] and the Solomon Islands in the east, 17,18 but also provide further insights into how human culture impacts on human genetics.…”

“…1,2 Previous studies have addressed human genetic variation in Oceania, particularly Polynesia, [3][4][5][6][7][8] mainland New Guinea [9][10][11][12][13] and Island Melanesia. [14][15][16][17][18] One area of Near Oceania (NO) yet understudied from a human genetic perspective is the island region off the southeastern tip of New Guinea (Figure 1). Administratively designated the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea (PNG), this area encompasses the D'Entrecasteaux Islands (ie, Normanby, Fergusson, Dobu and Goodenough), the Trobriand Islands, the Woodlark group (ie, Gawa, Woodlark and the Laughlan Islands), the Louisiade Archipelago (ie, Misima, Sudest, Rossel and the islands of the Calvados chain), as well as a portion of the nearby PNG mainland.…”

Austronesian genetic signature in East African Madagascar and Polynesia

“…Interestingly, (Scheinfeldt et al 2006). Resolution of the issue concerning the Taiwanese aboriginal source population to Austronesians outside Taiwan awaits systematic work involving all the Formosan tribes utilizing various types of marker systems.…”

Human paternal and maternal demographic histories: insights from high-resolution Y chromosome and mtDNA sequences

“…By contrast, NRY haplogroups associated with the Austronesian expansion, such as haplogroup O [63,66,67] are absent in the HGDP Oceania populations (Additional file 3: Table S5). This contrast further testifies to the larger maternal than paternal impact of the Austronesian expansion on Oceanian populations [63,[66][67][68][69].…”