Long Runs of Homozygosity Are Correlated with Marriage Preferences across Global Population Samples

Children of consanguineous unions carry long runs homozygosity (ROH) in their genomes, due to parents' recent shared ancestry. This increases the burden recessive disease populations with high levels consanguinity and has been heavily studied some groups. However, there little investigation broader effect on patterns genetic variation a global scale. study, which collected published data information about marriage practice from 395 worldwide populations, shows that reported preference for cousin detectable association distribution ROH this sample, increasing expected number longer than 10 cM by factor 2.2. Variation consequent rates are therefore an important aspect demographic history purposes modeling human variation. practices explain relatively small proportion distribution, consequently, population only partially informative cultural preferences.