Betti, Lia;
Balloux, Francois;
Hanihara, Tsunehiko;
Manica, Andrea;
(2010)
The Relative Role of Drift and Selection in Shaping the Human Skull.
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
, 141
(1)
pp. 76-82.
10.1002/ajpa.21115.
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Abstract
Human populations across the world vary greatly in cranial morphology. It is highly debated to what extent this variability has accumulated through neutral processes (genetic drift) or through natural selection driven by climate. By taking advantage of recent work showing that geographic distance along landmasses is an excellent proxy for neutral genetic differentiation, we quantify the relative role of drift versus selection in an exceptionally large dataset of human skulls. We show that neutral processes have been much more important than climate in shaping the human cranium. We further demonstrate that a large proportion of the signal for natural selection comes from populations from extremely cold regions. More generally, we show that, if drift is not explicitly accounted for, the effect of natural selection can be greatly overestimated. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Relative Role of Drift and Selection in Shaping the Human Skull |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1002/ajpa.21115 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.21115 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Anthropology, Evolutionary Biology, neutral processes, selection, geographic patterns, skull traits, HUMAN-POPULATIONS, CRANIOMETRIC VARIATION, GENE FLOW, DISTANCE, CLIMATE, PATTERNS, MORPHOLOGY, DIVERSITY, GEOGRAPHY, HISTORY |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Genetics, Evolution and Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Anthropology |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10218742 |
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