HUMAN Y CHROMOSOME LENGTH VARIATIONS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY WITH GENETIC DISTANCE BETWEEN DIFFERENT RACIAL GROUPS

Analysing data from published literature it is shown that the familial correlations of human Y chromosome length is much larger than inter-cellular repeatability within individuals. This confirms the stipulation that Y chromosome length is genetically determined. However, even though there exists considerable degree of Y length polymorphism variation across different human racial groups, clustering of populations based in Y chromosome length is not exactly in congruence with the degree of genetic differentiation between populations. Some implications of these results in using Y chromosome length polymorphism for evolutionary studies are also discussed.