engleski

Morphometric dimensions of the left second metacarpal bone in the analysis of the population structure of the island of Hvar

The study of the population structure of the island of Hvar by radiomorphometric methods on the basis of a number of dimensions of the left second metacarpal bone (bone length, width of diaphysis and width of the medullary canal) was carried out on a sample of 822 inhabitants of that island aged between 16 and 85 years. The results were processed by means of multivariate analysis, by discriminative analysis, by distance statistics, and by the analysis of non-parametric correlation between “biological distance” in space of the characteristics under review and geographic distances between individual subpopulations (villages) on the island. The results support the hypothesis that the differences between the ancestrally heterogeneous populations have been preserved in the frequencies of the alleles responsible for shaping the dimensions which define the status of the cortical bone of the peripheral skeleton. The statistically significant correlation found between “biological” geographic distances between individual villages indicates that geographical isolation, inevitably leading also to reproductive isolation, affected the biological structure of the population. In view of the identity of ecological pressures on all populations on the island, the observed heterogeneity in the phenotype of the analyzed characteristics supports the hypothesis of heterogeneity existing also in the frequencies of the alleles responsible for their shaping, and caused by the inhibition of gene flow due to the reproductive isolation of the subpopulation groups on the island.

Morphometric dimensions ; metacarpal bone ; Hvar island

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