The scientists mapping the SNPs in the human genome noticed that groups of SNPs tended to be inherited together, in blocks known as haplotypes, ranging in length from 5,000 to 200,000 base pairs. There are as few as four or five commonly occurring combinations of SNPs per haplotype. Integrating what you've learned throughout this chapter and this unit, propose an explanation for this observation.

SNPs have shown that only 0.1 % of DNA sequences are different in the human genome between different individuals, thereby all the inherited phenotypic variation observed in our species is associated with only 0.1 % of differences at the genome level

Explanation:

Haplotypes are block-like sequences of DNA that are inherited together due to low recombination rates. Moreover, single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) mapping is a very useful methodology used to map the site of SNP mutations (i.e., SNP variants). In this regard, it has been observed that there are approximately 10 million common SNPs in the human genome. These SNPs contribute to the wide range of phenotypic variation observed in human populations for different traits (e.g., eye color, hair, weight, height, etc). Moreover, researchers have determined that SNPs can be clustered into haplotypes, thereby haplotypes can be accurately sampled by as few as approx. 300,000 selected SNPs, which are sufficient to represent all of the genetic variation across different human genomes.