© Kamla-Raj 2005                                                                             J. Hum. Ecol., 17(4): 247-250 (2005)

Effects of Inbreeding in the Mudugar and Irular Tribal

Populations in Kerala

Stephen Joseph¹ and P. M. Mathew²

1. Department of Botany, University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram 695 581, Kerala, India

E-mail: drstephen @sancharnet.in.

2. Perakathusseril, Muttada P.O., Thiruvananthapuram, 695 525, Kerala, India

E-mail: profpmmathew @ rediffmail.com

KEYWORDS Inbreeding. Mortality. Mudugar. Irular. Tribals. Kerala

ABSTRACT Consanguinity study was carried out in the Mudugar and Irular tribal groups in the Palakkad district of Kerala. The frequency of inbreeding in them were 78.74 % and 72.20% and mean coefficient of inbreeding 0.05592 and 0.04691 respectively. The prenatal, postnatal and total mortality in the consanguineous groups were 15.84%, 26.23%, and 37.92% in the Mudugars, and 10.96%, 13.05% and 22.59% in the Irulars, which showed significant increase from non consanguineous families. In both the groups, the postnatal figures were in excess than the prenatal. The mortality risk was positively associated with the rate of inbreeding. It is suggested that the observed magnitudes of risk effect in both groups are due to high rates of inbreeding, which produced significantly higher proportions of affected recessive homozygotes with low survival level resulting in fairly wide differentials.

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