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Common Ancestor

Definition
AI-generated

A common ancestor is an individual, population, or taxon from which two or more descendants inherit shared genetic material; in coalescent and phylogenetic models, lineages trace backward in time until they meet at ancestral nodes representing those shared origins.

Topics
Evolutionary genetics
Related
Coalescent Theory Identity by Descent (IBD) Ortholog

Why it matters in GWAS

Identity by descent (IBD) segments, relatedness inference, and phasing assume shared ancestry; comparative annotation maps human variants onto orthologs in species sharing deep common ancestors. Demographic inference estimates times to common ancestors of populations.

Example usage

"The IBD segment implied a recent common ancestor within the pedigree despite no recorded relationship."

Coalescent Theory Identity by Descent (IBD) Ortholog Phylogeny Relatedness Speciation
Related-term network

Click any node to open that term page.

Node order. The current term is first. Next come every page linked from Related terms, in the same top-to-bottom order as that list. Then new terms appear in two-hop layers: for each of those direct neighbors (in that same order), their related terms are appended if not already listed. A third pass does the same for two-hop nodes. The walk stops when a fixed maximum number of nodes is reached.

References

  • Wakeley J. (2009). Coalescent Theory: An Introduction. Roberts & Company.
← Combined Annotation Dependent Depletion (CADD) Common Era (CE) →

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