New paper inferring complex demographic models for Latin American populations

Posted by Ragsdale Lab on October 2, 2023

Santiago’s paper, “Demographic modeling of admixed Latin American populations from whole genomes” is now published in AJHG (bioRxiv link)! In collaboration with Andrés Moreno at LANGEBIO and other researchers at LIIGH-UNAM, we inferred detailed demographic models for Latin American populations using whole genome data, including 50 newly sequenced whole genomes from Indigenous individuals in Mexico. The demographic models are big improvements over existing models for demographic history in the Americas, and you can simulate data using simulation software that support Demes (such as msprime, fwdpy11, dadi, and moments). The models are provided as supplementary files in the publication, and can also be found on github. In Santiago’s paper, we show how these models can be combined with parameters of selection to run realistic genomic simulations of functional variation in admixed Latin American populations.