Linajes paternos autóctonos de Gran Chaco analizados con microsatélites

Gran Chaco is one of the most recently peopled areas from the South American Lowlands; it has kept its ethnolinguistic diversity and shows evidence of interethnic contacts. The goal of this paper is to describe the structure of native male lineages in Gran Chaco populations, for which we analyzed 116 individuals from wichi, toba, chorote, mocovi populations in Argentina and lengua and ayoreo populations from Paraguay. We identified paternal haplogroups by AFLP and haplotypes based on 17 microsatellites. We added to the analyses 166 individuals from the Argentinian Northwest (NOA) for regional comparisons. We estimated haplotypic frequencies and fixation indexes and assessed the correlation between geographic and genetic distances. We performed Principal Coordinates Analysis and calculated possible genetic barriers. We found 167 unique haplotypes, 43of which were shared between the Gran Chaco and NOA populations.  F ST distances and Autocorrelation Analysis show a geographic pattern of isolation by distance and 3 barriers that segregate the toba from Salta, lengua and ayoreo from Paraguay and the mocovi from Chaco, which is expected since these last two populations are geographically more distant. These barriers persist when the Argentinian Northwest samples are added, but there is no evidence of barriers between the Gran Chaco and Northwest populations, suggesting connections between these two regions.