RT Journal Article
T1 The Role of Inbreeding in the Extinction of a European Royal Dynasty
A1 Álvarez Jurado, Gonzalo Álvaro
A1 Camiña Ceballos, Francisco
A1 Quinteiro García, Celsa
AB The kings of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty (1516–1700) frequently married close relatives in such a way that uncle-niece,first cousins and other consanguineous unions were prevalent in that dynasty. In the historical literature, it has beensuggested that inbreeding was a major cause responsible for the extinction of the dynasty when the king Charles II,physically and mentally disabled, died in 1700 and no children were born from his two marriages, but this hypothesis hasnot been examined from a genetic perspective. In this article, this hypothesis is checked by computing the inbreedingcoefficient (F) of the Spanish Habsburg kings from an extended pedigree up to 16 generations in depth and involving morethan 3,000 individuals. The inbreeding coefficient of the Spanish Habsburg kings increased strongly along generations from0.025 for king Philip I, the founder of the dynasty, to 0.254 for Charles II and several members of the dynasty had inbreedingcoefficients higher than 0.20. In addition to inbreeding due to unions between close relatives, ancestral inbreeding frommultiple remote ancestors makes a substantial contribution to the inbreeding coefficient of most kings. A statisticallysignificant inbreeding depression for survival to 10 years is detected in the progenies of the Spanish Habsburg kings. Theresults indicate that inbreeding at the level of first cousin (F = 0.0625) exerted an adverse effect on survival of 17.8%612.3. Itis speculated that the simultaneous occurrence in Charles II (F = 0.254) of two different genetic disorders: combined pituitaryhormone deficiency and distal renal tubular acidosis, determined by recessive alleles at two unlinked loci, could explainmost of the complex clinical profile of this king, including his impotence/infertility which in last instance led to theextinction of the dynasty.
PB PLOS
YR 2009
FD 2009
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/22905
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/22905
LA eng
NO Alvarez G, Ceballos FC, Quinteiro C (2009) The Role of Inbreeding in the Extinction of a European Royal Dynasty. PLoS ONE 4(4): e5174. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0005174
DS Minerva
RD 7 jun 2026