Asymmetry and intraindividual diversity in digital dermatoglyphics of Bulgarians

Abstract

A random sample of 2,130 apparently healthy Bulgarians, 1,065 of each sex, was investigated to obtain a detailed picture of finger dermatoglyphic asymmetry and intraindividual diversity in the population examined. Both sexes showed an almost equal pattern of asymmetry and diversity. Relative pattern asymmetry, taking into account the pattern type frequencies, tends to be higher in males, being especially pronounced on fingers which show a low asymmetry in other aspects. Like other populations so far examined, Bulgarians display higher rates in males than in females concerning the total, ulnar, and radial ridge-counts, their asymmetries, and intraindividual diversities. However, the more analysis of the ridge-count asymmetry is worked out in detail, the more it becomes evident that both sexes are asymmetrical not so much to a different degree as in a different manner. As a whole, the ambidirectional, directional, fluctuating, and relative asymmetries are practically consistent in both sexes. Important sex differences are revealed in the structure of the directional and fluctuating asymmetries concerning contrasts between their radial and ulnar levels. The sex differences in directional asymmetry are discussed in the light of possible effects of the sex chromosomes upon the mediolateral developmental gradients. Expressed modulation of the fluctuating asymmetry by finger is interpreted as evidence for considerable differences between separate finger pairs in their sensitivity to stressful factors. Presented results are relevant to anthropology and population genetics and could have implications in medical genetics and teratology, serving as normative data in pathological conditions.

Finger ridge-count asymmetry and diversity in Andean Indians and interpopulation comparisons

“…An examination of the literature shows that there are several studies on dermatoglyphic asymmetry and intraindividual diversity of finger ridge-counts in populations of mainly Indo-European ancestry (Chakraborty et al, 1982;Jantz, 1975;Karev, 1990;Kobyliansky and Micle, 1987Leguebe and Vrydagh-Laoureux, 1978;Micle and Kobyliansky, 1987;Roche et al, 1979;Vona and Porcell, 1983) and African ancestry (Jantz, 1975;Salzano and Benevides, 1974), while, to the author's knowledge, published data on Amerindians are missing until now. In order to fill this gap, the present study reports observations on asymmetry and diversity in an Amerindian group, the Aymara Indians.…”

“…Bilateral asymmetry has mainly been studied in dental (e.g., Groeneveld and Kieser, 1991;Harris and Nweeia, 1980;Hershkovitz et al, 1987Hershkovitz et al, , 1993Kieser et al, 1986;Townsend and Brown, 1980), anthropometric (Garn et al, 1976;Livshits and Kobyliansky, 1989;Livshits and Smouse, 1993;Malina and Buschang, 1984;Plato et al, 1980;Schell et al, 1985), and dermatoglyphic traits (Jantz, 1975;Karev, 1990;Micle, 1987, 1989;Micle and Kobyliansky, 1987;Roche et al, 1979;Vona and Porcell, 1983). The specific feature of dermatoglyphic characters is that they could not be altered by postnatal environmental influences, in contrast to anthropometric traits.…”

The method of pattern combination analysis in dermatoglyphics: I. Diversity and sex differences among the regional populations of the Yanadi

“…2) and also in PCT and PCR, where they show absence of tetramorphic patterns, which was also confirmed by Micle and Kobyliansky (1987) among Israel Jews, where they show absence of tetramorphic PDI values. But the Bulgarian study do not show such clear sex differences in PDI values (Karov, 1990), perhaps it might show sex differences if the pattern combination types (both PCT and PCT-tr.) were also considered, since qualitative method has a better discriminatory capacity than quantitative method of pattern combination analysis, as was observed from the present study and from an early study .…”

“…Followng Lu (1968), Micle and Kobyliansky (1988) extended the application of Shanon's entropy measure to the several proportions or ratios of relative frequency of pattern combionation types to study intra-individual diversity among Israeli Jews and found significant sex differences with respect to four pattern type combinations. But, Karov (1990) by following Micle and Kobyliansky's method has not found significant sex differences in intraindividual diversity among the Bulgarian sample.…”

The age-specific features of palm dermatoglyphics in the adults subjects

“…В криминалистической прак тике основу их диагностической информативности со ставляют форма, размер и пропорции, позволяющие вы сказать ориентировочное суждение о возрасте, росте (длина тела), а иногда и о половой принадлежности оста вившего их неизвестного лица [2,3]. В медикобиологи ческих исследованиях в большей степени обращают вни мание на характер папиллярного рисунка, который от ражает закономерности расо и этногенеза [4][5][6], слу жит маркером врожденных заболеваний [4,[7][8][9], кров ного родства [4,10] и ряда конституциональных, физи ческих и внешнеопознавательных признаков личности [11][12][13].…”