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Recent acceleration of human adaptive evolution.

John Hawks1, Eric T Wang, Gregory M Cochran

  • 1Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA. jhawk@wisc.edu

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|December 19, 2007
PubMed
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Human genomic surveys reveal accelerated positive selection in the last 40,000 years. This rapid genetic evolution is consistent with human population growth and cultural changes, not a constant rate of adaptive substitution.

Area of Science:

  • Human genomics
  • Evolutionary biology
  • Population genetics

Background:

  • Genomic surveys indicate substantial recent positive selection in human populations.
  • Understanding the tempo and mode of recent human evolution is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To test the hypothesis of a constant rate of adaptive substitution during human evolution.
  • To investigate the drivers of recent rapid genetic changes in humans.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of the 3.9-million HapMap single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) dataset.
  • Statistical modeling to assess the age distribution of positively selected linkage blocks.
  • Comparison of observed genomic data with predictions from a constant selection rate model.

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Main Results:

  • A constant rate of adaptive substitution cannot explain observed human genetic diversity, heterozygosity patterns, or linkage disequilibrium.
  • The observed data are consistent with a model incorporating human population growth.
  • Recent human evolution has been extraordinarily rapid.

Conclusions:

  • Recent positive selection in humans has accelerated significantly, driven by demographic expansion and cultural/ecological changes.
  • A constant rate of adaptive substitution is not supported by current human genomic data.
  • Human population growth is a key factor in recent rapid genetic evolution.