Diversity of some gene frequencies in European and Asian populations. III. Spatial correlogram analysis.

The gene frequencies at eight loci in some European and Asian human populations have been subjected to spatial autocorrelation analysis, using Geary's c coefficient. Contrary to what is expected for markers affected only by gene flow and genetic drift, the spatial correlograms show distinct modes of gene frequency variation: there are significant clinal patterns (at the GLO and ESD loci), significant non-clinal patterns (AK, ADA, 6-PGD and GPT) and marginally significant patterns (PGP and SOD). Any hypothesis on the evolution of these polymorphisms should account for the observed heterogeneity of their geographical distributions.