Hünemeier, T;
Amorim, CE;
Azevedo, S;
Contini, V;
Acuña-Alonzo, V;
Rothhammer, F;
Dugoujon, JM;
... Bortolini, MC; + view all
(2012)
Evolutionary responses to a constructed niche: ancient Mesoamericans as a model of gene-culture coevolution.
PLOS One
, 7
(6)
, Article e38862. 10.1371/journal.pone.0038862.
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Abstract
Culture and genetics rely on two distinct but not isolated transmission systems. Cultural processes may change the human selective environment and thereby affect which individuals survive and reproduce. Here, we evaluated whether the modes of subsistence in Native American populations and the frequencies of the ABCA1*Arg230Cys polymorphism were correlated. Further, we examined whether the evolutionary consequences of the agriculturally constructed niche in Mesoamerica could be considered as a gene-culture coevolution model. For this purpose, we genotyped 229 individuals affiliated with 19 Native American populations and added data for 41 other Native American groups (n = 1905) to the analysis. In combination with the SNP cluster of a neutral region, this dataset was then used to unravel the scenario involved in 230Cys evolutionary history. The estimated age of 230Cys is compatible with its origin occurring in the American continent. The correlation of its frequencies with the archeological data on Zea pollen in Mesoamerica/Central America, the neutral coalescent simulations, and the F(ST)-based natural selection analysis suggest that maize domestication was the driving force in the increase in the frequencies of 230Cys in this region. These results may represent the first example of a gene-culture coevolution involving an autochthonous American allele.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Evolutionary responses to a constructed niche: ancient Mesoamericans as a model of gene-culture coevolution. |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0038862 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0038862 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2012 Hünemeier et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This study was supported by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq); Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul (FAPERGS), PRONEX (Brazil); Programme Interdisciplinaire CNRS: Amazonie-Analyse, Modélisation et Ingénierie des Systèmes Amazoniens (France); and Convenio de Desempeño Mecesup 2/UTA (Chile). These funding agencies had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Correction: In Table 1, the heading signifying information for Andean Agriculturalist information was missing. Please see the corrected table here: http://www.plosone.org/corrections/pone.0038862.t001.cn.tif |
| Keywords: | Agriculture, Alleles, Biological Evolution, Culture, Ecosystem, Gene Frequency, Genetic Association Studies, Genetic Loci, Genetics, Population, Genotype, Geography, Humans, Indians, North American, Models, Biological, Pollen, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Radiometric Dating, Regression Analysis, Zea mays |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1371866 |
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