Isolation by distance in Bougainville.

The technique of population structure analysis based upon the model of Malécot is applied to blood polymorph, anthropometric, and demographic data collected from residents of south-central Bougainville Island, Territory of New Guinea. The results from these several analyses are relatively consistent and support the idea that this theoretical model can be applied successfully to real sets of biological data and that useful conclusions can be reached concerning the breeding structure of human populations. A comparison of population structures from various parts of the world reveals how fragmented the breeding structure in Melanesia is, and how relatively rapidly the coefficient of kinship declines over distance in that area.