Abstract
Quantification of the genetic distance between populations is instrumental in many genetic research initiatives, and a large number of formulas for this purpose have been proposed. However, selection of an appropriate measure for assessing genetic distance between real-world human populations that diverged as a result of mechanisms that are not fully known can be a challenging task.
We compared results from nine widely used genetic distance measures to high-density whole-genome SNP genotype data obtained on individuals from 51 world populations. Using population trees and generalized analysis of molecular variance, we founcl that contradictory inferences could be drawn from analyses that used different distance measures.
We determined the grouping of the distance measures in terms of similarity and consistency of their values using concordance, consistency, and Procrustes analyses.