Geographical Substructuring on Eastern Adriatic Islands

This poster shortly portrays an analysis of the matrilineal legacy of two Eastern Adriatic islands, Hvar and Korcula. Both islands fit into a southern group of Eastern Adriatic islands, belonging to the cities of Split and Dubrovnik municipalities, respectively. We have analysed a total of 250 mtDNAs based on high resolution analysis of SNPs from the control and coding region. Results show a relatively high diversity of haplogroups: 7 haplogroups and 37 subhaplogroups, altogether. Despite a relatively small population (11103 on Hvar, 16182 on Korcula) and sample size (161 from Hvar, 89 from Korcula) of both Islands, the analysis showed a tendency of population substructuring depending on the geographical region of the island, when mitochondrial DNA haplogroup distribution is concerned. While Hvar islanders are divided into an Eastern and Western group, the Korcula islanders show a three-way distribution into Northern, Eastern and Western group. Also, two unexpected and rare haplogroups were discovered, L2a3 in a single individual on the island of Korcula, and F1b haplogroup in 10 individuals on the island of Hvar. Both lineages have been completely sequenced, and presented in a form of phylogenetic tree. We wanted to emphasize events such as founder effect, bottleneck, isolation and various historical, geographical and sociocultural factors that acted upon the maternal genetic landscape of contemporary populations on Eastern Adriatic islands.