Last names are handy for more than constructing family trees they can also trace population connections and movements across and between countries.
We used a pollen and plant macrofossil-based aDNA approach and traced population size changes of Norway spruce in a refugial area in the South Carpathian Mountains.
When, in the early 20th century, anthropological science abandoned the idea of races as both scientifically unsound and morally hideous, it turned to population characteristics and tracing how populations moved from place to place.
The absence of recombination and maternal transmission of the chloroplast genome (limiting gene flow to seed dispersal only) makes cpDNA markers useful for tracing source population(s).
Such analyses may be compromised if human-associated movement has altered haplotype frequencies in the native populations, but this potential exists for all methods tracing source populations.
When only one population contributes after the founding, in the limit, all ancestry in the hybrid population traces to that population.
Owing to the absence of recombination and maternal transmission, the cp genomes are helpful for tracing source populations [ 10, 11] and phylogenetic studies of higher plants for resolving complex evolutionary relationships [ 12- 14].
Another important aspect is that the hybridization profile detected emphasizes the possibility of the use of such elements as molecular markers to trace the population structure of M. fijiensis in places where this disease has been described.
Changes in the distribution of the beetles may be traced using population genetics methods, and the cause of the sudden disease expansion may be inferred using molecular ecological studies.
Similar studies have traced the population history of many other species including rabbits [ 31], pocket gophers [ 32], black-footed ferrets [ 33], sea otters [ 34], grizzlies [ 35], red squirrels [ 36], canids [ 37], penguins [ 38], artic fox [ 39], Chatham Island taikos [ 40], woolly mammoths [ 41], bears [ 42], equids [ 1, 43], Tasman booby [ 44] and quails [ 45].
