The Creation of Metropolitan Amazonia: Genetic Consequences of Migration and Urbanization

Abstract

Uniparental genetic markers were analyzed in a sample of 182 individuals from the Peruvian Amazonian city of Yurimaguas. The site of extensive pre-Columbian and modern migratory fluctuation, contemporary Yurimaguas is characterized by considerable population diversity. Individually unique migratory and demographic profiles were combined with population genetic methodology to cultivate a co-constitutive view of the establishment of a modern Amazonian urban center. Yurimaguas, like many cities in the Global South, continues to experience the multifarious effects of accelerated migration and urbanization on population architecture. Biodemography and population genetics are used to assess consequences and evaluate potential contributing environments and events. A nuanced, interdisciplinary perspective through both a populational and molecular lens on the creation of today’s urban populations is critical to informing the following: (1) our evolutionary development, historical interactions, and prior movements, (2) the relationship between genetic diversity and the evolutionary forces of gene flow, genetic drift, and natural selection, and (3) human migratory and mating behavior.