population stuly as possible)
and an understauding of the structure
of the populations oa which the estimates are to be based.
This is,
oF coucse, crue for plant and animal as well as human populations.
fn
tun present instanea, we ave of course intrigued by the possibility
‘Chat
the iia of these Factores differs in Micronesians
from the other
ot
groups cited, Okey lower mutation rates or greater stochastic loss of
new rmatanes
in the Tlicronesians.
Before these possibilities can be
profitably pursued by the indirect approach, sample size must be
adequate.
There is clearly some’ minimal sample necessary to a trust-
worthy estimate of the frequency of rare variants in populaClons like
Micronesians and Anierindians, and most investigators would probably
auree that the Micronesians do not yet approach that minimum.
Un-
fortunately, our kaowledge of the clustering of specific rare variants
in celutively undisturbed populations is still so scanty that further
expettoence is necessary prior to setting that reasonable minimum.
SUMMARY
Blood specimens from a sample of 187 Marshall Islanders were
studied with reference to variants of 22 serum proteins and erythrocyte enzymes.
Six of the trafts studied exhibited genetic poly-
morphisms (adenosine deaminase, phosphoglucomutase,, acid phospha-~
1
tase, 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase, haptoglobin, group specific
component).
There was in addition one "rare" variant (of albumin)
in 4,047 determinations,
These results on rare variants have been
combined with those of others on Micronesians and the frequency of
rare variants in Micronesiany compared with the frequencies in West
I0049b3b