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Migration to America took long enough for evolution to happen on the way

O'Grady, Cathleen
http://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/migration-to-america-took-long-enough-for-evolution-to-happen-on-the-way/

Publisher:  Arstechnica
Date Written:  17/02/2017
Year Published:  2017  
Resource Type:  Article

Similarities in Native American genomes suggest adaptation in ancient history.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

Recently, a genetic survey of 191 Greenlandic Inuit people found some genetic patterns that are so common that the best explanation for them is natural selection. Specifically, there’s evidence to suggest that three genes involved in metabolizing fatty acids (called the fatty acid desaturases, or FADS, genes) show changes that might be the result of adaptation to a diet high in protein and fats. That sort of diet tends to be one of the side-effects of living in the Arctic.

But these conditions aren’t really particular to Greenland; they were probably similar in Beringia. It's possible that the adaptations took place on Beringia itself—in which case they would predate the peopling of all the Americas.

To test this hypothesis, a group of researchers compared the genomes of Native Americans to people from Africa, Europe, and East Asia. In line with earlier evidence, they found variants in the FADS genes that were much more common in the Native American genomes. This is true even though diets among Native American populations became quite diverse over their history.

There’s a growing pile of evidence that the FADS genes are pretty important, says Rasmus Nielsen, who wasn’t involved with this paper, but was one of the authors on the paper about the Greenlandic Inuit genome. The same genes seem to show signs of natural selection in lots of different human populations, and it all seems to have something to do with the histories of what those populations have eaten. “These are genes that seem to be really, really important when the diet changes,” he says.

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