People more likely to choose a spouse with similar DNA, finds CU-Boulder study | University of Colorado Boulder
▻http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2014/05/19/people-more-likely-choose-spouse-similar-dna-finds-cu-boulder-study
Individuals are more genetically similar to their spouses than they are to randomly selected individuals from the same population, according to a new study from the University of Colorado Boulder.
#étude_récente qui risque d’avoir un petit succès médiatique, ça va dans le sens du poil dominant…
Même le communiqué de l’Université y va de son interprétation en introduisant le mot preference comme substitut à genetic associative mating nettement moins sexy…
The researchers compared the magnitude of the genetic similarity between married people to the magnitude of the better-studied phenomenon of people with similar educations marrying, known as educational assortative mating. They found that the preference for a genetically similar spouse, known as genetic assortative mating, is about a third of the strength of educational assortative mating.
L’abstract
Genetic and educational assortative mating among US adults
▻http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/05/14/1321426111.abstract
Understanding the social and biological mechanisms that lead to homogamy (similar individuals marrying one another) has been a long-standing issue across many fields of scientific inquiry. Using a nationally representative sample of non-Hispanic white US adults from the Health and Retirement Study and information from 1.7 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms, we compare genetic similarity among married couples to noncoupled pairs in the population. We provide evidence for genetic assortative mating in this population but the strength of this association is substantially smaller than the strength of educational assortative mating in the same sample. Furthermore, genetic similarity explains at most 10% of the assortative mating by education levels. Results are replicated using comparable data from the Framingham Heart Study.
et la significance
It is well established that individuals are more similar to their spouses than other individuals on important traits, such as education level. The genetic similarity, or lack thereof, between spouses is less well understood. We estimate the genome-wide genetic similarity of spouses and compare the magnitude of this value to a comparable measure of educational similarity. We find that spouses are more genetically similar than two individuals chosen at random but this similarity is at most one-third the magnitude of educational similarity. Furthermore, social sorting processes in the marriage market are largely independent of genetic dynamics of sexual selection.
Le reste derrière #paywall