Paternal lineages signal distinct genetic contributions from British Loyalists and continental Africans among different Bahamian islands.

Over the past 500 years, the Bahamas has been influenced by a wide array of settlers, some of whom have left marked genetic imprints throughout the archipelago. To assess the extent of each group's genetic contributions, high-resolution Y-chromosome analyses were performed, for the first time, to delineate the patriarchal ancestry of six islands in the Northwest (Abaco and Grand Bahama) and Central (Eleuthera, Exuma, Long Island, and New Providence) Bahamas and their genetic relationships with previously published reference populations. Our results reveal genetic signals emanating primarily from African and European sources, with the predominantly sub-Saharan African and Western European haplogroups E1b1a-M2 and R1b1b1-M269, respectively, accounting for greater than 75% of all Bahamian patrilineages. Surprisingly, we observe notable discrepancies among the six Bahamian populations in their distribution of these lineages, with E1b1a-M2 predominating Y-chromosomes in the collections from Abaco, Exuma, Eleuthera, Grand Bahama, and New Providence, whereas R1b1b1-M269 is found at elevated levels in the Long Island population. Substantial Y-STR haplotype variation within sub-haplogroups E1b1a7a-U174 and E1b1ba8-U175 (greater than any continental African collection) is also noted, possibly indicating genetic influences from a variety of West and Central African groups. Furthermore, differential European genetic contributions in each island (with the exception of Exuma) reflect settlement patterns of the British Loyalists subsequent to the American Revolution.

Y-STR diversity and sex-biased gene flow among Caribbean populations.

In the present study, we report, for the first time, the allele and haplotype frequencies of 17 Y-STR (Y-filer) loci in the populations of Haiti, Jamaica and the Bahamas (Abaco, Eleuthera, Exuma, Grand Bahama, Long Island and New Providence). This investigation was undertaken to assess the paternal genetic structure of the abovementioned Caribbean islands. A total of 607 different haplotypes were identified among the 691 males examined, of which 537 (88.5%) were unique. Haplotype diversities (HD) ranged from 0.989 in Long Island to 1.000 in Grand Bahama, with limited haplotype sharing observed among these Caribbean collections. Discriminatory capacity (DC) values were also high, ranging from 79.1% to 100% in Long Island and Grand Bahama, respectively, illustrating the capacity of this set of markers to differentiate between patrilineal related individuals within each population. Phylogenetic comparison of the Bahamian, Haitian and Jamaican groups with available African, European, East Asian and Native American populations reveals strong genetic ties with the continental African collections, a finding that corroborates our earlier work using autosomal STR and Y-chromosome binary markers. In addition, various degrees of sex-biased gene flow exhibiting disproportionately higher European paternal (as compared to autosomal) influences were detected in all Caribbean islands genotyped except for Abaco and Eleuthera. We attribute the presence or absence of asymmetric gene flow to unique, island specific demographic events and family structures.

Divergent genetic strata in five Bahamian islands.

Based on historical records, the genetic landscape of the Bahamian archipelago is presumed to be complex and to exhibit island-specific characteristics, yet the genetic composition of the island chain, which could corroborate or refute these past accounts, remains poorly defined. As such, the current investigation was undertaken to genetically characterize 5 Bahamian populations representing the Northwest (Grand Bahama and Abaco) and Central (Eleuthera, Exuma and Long Island) Bahamas across the 15 autosomal Identifiler loci routinely employed in forensic analyses. Altogether, our findings suggest that Bahamians are a genetically heterogeneous group, with each island sampled receiving differential contributions from African, European, East Asian and Native American sources. Even though the strongest genetic signal in all 5 collections emanates from continental Africa, inter-island differentiation is noted in both the Structure and admixture analyses. The presence of alleles not in common among the 5 insular populations also signals genetic heterogeneity among the islands of the archipelago. This is especially the case when considering the Long Island population, which exhibits statistically significant genetic differences in relation to the other Bahamian collections and the New World groups of African descent (Afro-American and Afro-Caribbean) in the G-test pair-wise comparisons, even after application of the Bonferroni adjustment.