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Concept
Human evolutionary genetics
Summary
Human evolutionary genetics studies how one human genome differs from another human genome, the evolutionary past that gave rise to the human genome, and its current effects. Differences between genomes have anthropological, medical, historical and forensic implications and applications. Genetic data can provide important insights into human evolution.
Biologists classify humans, along with only a few other species, as great apes (species in the family Hominidae). The living Hominidae include two distinct species of chimpanzee (the bonobo, Pan paniscus, and the chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes), two species of gorilla (the western gorilla, Gorilla gorilla, and the eastern gorilla, Gorilla graueri), and two species of orangutan (the Bornean orangutan, Pongo pygmaeus, and the Sumatran orangutan, Pongo abelii). The great apes with the family Hylobatidae of gibbons form the superfamily Hominoidea of apes.
Apes, in turn, belong to the primate order (>400 species), along with the Old World monkeys, the New World monkeys, and others. Data from both mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and nuclear DNA (nDNA) indicate that primates belong to the group of Euarchontoglires, together with Rodentia, Lagomorpha, Dermoptera, and Scandentia. This is further supported by Alu-like short interspersed nuclear elements (SINEs) which have been found only in members of the Euarchontoglires.
A phylogenetic tree is usually derived from DNA or protein sequences from populations. Often, mitochondrial DNA or Y chromosome sequences are used to study ancient human demographics. These single-locus sources of DNA do not recombine and are almost always inherited from a single parent, with only one known exception in mtDNA. Individuals from closer geographic regions generally tend to be more similar than individuals from regions farther away. Distance on a phylogenetic tree can be used approximately to indicate:
Genetic distance. The genetic difference between humans and chimpanzees is less than 2%, or three times larger than the variation among modern humans (estimated at 0.
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