Jeffrey Hatcher (Ph.D. 2007, Anthropology)
(co-advised by Don Melnick) 

 
Relating Paternity and Population Genetics in Blue Monkeys, Cercopithecus mitis stuhlmanni: Empirical Results and Strategies for Obtaining Them

 Dissertation Abstract: A topic of enduring interest in physical anthropology is the relationship between social organization, paternity, and genetic evolution in various species of primates. A population sample of several adjacent groups of blue monkeys, Cercopithecus mitis stuhlmanni, from western Kenya was genetically analyzed for patterns of paternity and genetic structure to try to evaluate the role of social organization in population evolution. DNA obtained from fecal samples was used for genotyping nine microsatellite markers from over two hundred individuals. Estimates of the reproductive success of resident males and non-resident males were calculated using the paternity assignment program CERVUS to make assignments of offspring to males. Because of low reliability for most assignments, they were summarized by male and by confidence level with corrections factored into a single numeric estimate of reproductive success per male.  Correction factors were calculated using novel computer programs.
         The same programs were used for simulations to evaluate the utility of laboratory methods for use in software for both analyzing paternity (CERVUS) and inbreeding (GENEPOP). Simulations were also used to evaluate the potential for the study population to show a relationship between patterns of non-random paternity to changes in gene frequencies over generations.

Results of simulations were compared to empirical data derived from the Isecheno study site in the Kakamega Forest, Kenya. They showed that the number of genotyped loci had inadequate statistical power for paternity assignment, especially in light of incomplete candidate sampling and genotyping. Nevertheless, estimates of relative reproductive success suggest that resident males sire more offspring in the study groups than do non-residents, although the latter may account collectively for about one half of the offspring sired. It also appears that the study population is not optimal, by itself, to discern the full potential of social systems to affect genetic evolution.
            Population genetics analyses of inbreeding coefficients and correlations between paternal allele distributions of offspring and allele distributions of the total male population revealed a detectable but slight relationship between social organization, male reproductive success, and genetic structure.