File:Number of Founding Individuals in the Mlabri, Given No mtDNA Diversity.png

English: Number of Founding Individuals in the Mlabri, Given No mtDNA Diversity

Posterior probability distribution for the number of founding individuals (k), conditioned on the observation of no diversity in a sample of 58 mtDNA sequences and the time since the founding event. The prior probability is indicated by the dashed black line.

We employed a Bayesian approach, following the procedure previously used to estimate the number of founders for the Maoris but allowing for new mutations, to estimate the number of founders for the Mlabri, assuming various time periods since the founding event. The results indicate that the most probable number of founders is one over all time periods; however, for longer time periods since the founding event, there is decreasing information on the number of founders from the observation of no mtDNA diversity in the Mlabri. As expected, the longer the time since the founding event (i.e., the slower the population growth rate), the greater the influence of drift in eliminating diversity that might have been present in the founding population. Nevertheless, given that the coalescent analyses indicate an upper date for the origin of the Mlabri of about 1,000 y ago, the lack of mtDNA diversity in the Mlabri is most consistent with a very small founding population size, perhaps even only one female lineage.