Reconstructing the Population Genetic History of the Caribbean
Figure 4
Sub-continental origin of Native American components in the Caribbean.
A) Ancestry-specific PCA analysis restricted to Native American segments from admixed Caribbean individuals (colored circles) and a reference panel of indigenous populations (gray symbols) from [11], grouped by sampling location. Darker symbols denote countries of origin with populations clustering closer to our Caribbean samples. Indigenous Colombian populations were classified into East and West of the Andes to ease the interpretation of their differential clustering in ASPCA. Population labels are shown for samples defining PC axes and representative clusters within locations. B) ADMIXTURE model for K = 16 ancestral clusters considering additional Latino samples, a representative subset of African and European source populations, and 52 Native American populations from [11], plus three additional Native Venezuelan tribes genotyped for this project. Vertical thin bars represent individuals and white spaces separate populations. Native American populations from [11] are grouped according to linguistic families reported therein. Labels are shown for the populations representing the 12 Native American clusters identified at K = 16. Clusters involving multiple populations are identified by those with the highest membership values. C) Map showing the major indigenous components shared across the Caribbean basin as revealed by ADMIXTURE at K = 16 from B). Namely, Mesoamerican (blue), Chibchan (yellow), and South American (green). Colored bars represent individuals and their approximate sampling locations. Bars pooling genetically similar individuals from more than one population are plotted from left to right following north to south coordinates as listed by population labels. Guarani, Wichi, and Chane from north Argentina are pooled with Arara but only the location of the latter is shown to allow us to provide a zoomed view of the Caribbean region (see [11] for the full map of sampling locations). The thick arrow represents schematically the most accepted origin of the Arawak expansion from South America into the Great Antilles around 2,500 years ago according to linguistic and archaeological evidence [30]. Asterisks next to population labels denote Arawakan populations included in our reference panel. The thin arrow indicates gene flow between South America and Mesoamerica, possibly following a coastal or maritime route, accounting for the Mayan mixture and supporting pre-Columbian back migrations across the Caribbean.