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Genetic Divergence

Definition
AI-generated

Genetic divergence is the accumulation of allele-frequency and sequence differences between populations or lineages—driven by mutation, genetic drift, natural selection, and limited gene flow—often summarized by *F*-statistics, pairwise sequence divergence, or branch lengths on a phylogeny.

Topics
Population genetics
Related
Common Ancestor Fixation index (FST) Gene Flow

Why it matters in GWAS

Cross-ancestry GWAS and polygenic score transfer interpret effect heterogeneity against a backdrop of allele-frequency divergence and LD differences; demographic models use divergence to calibrate split times and migration rates that inform structure correction and meta-analysis.

Example usage

"We quantified genetic divergence between cohorts before testing for heterogeneity of the lead SNP effect."

Common Ancestor Fixation index (FST) Gene Flow Introgression Linkage Disequilibrium (LD) Phylogeny Speciation
Related-term network

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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

  • Nei M, Kumar S. (2000). Molecular Evolution and Phylogenetics. Oxford University Press.
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