Biology 15627 Apr 2001

Evolutionary EcologyBob Podolsky

Week 15-16. Human evolutionary ecology

Study guide

After the module on human evolutionary ecology, you should be able to:

Lecture 15.1. Skin color as an adaptive morphological trait

  1. Describe evidence that humans may be under selection for traits involved in reproductive success, and suggest what might happen to such selection pressures given changes in birthing practices
  2. Give two alternative hypotheses for the prevalence of myopia in human populations, and evaluate evidence or arguments in support of each hypothesis
  3. Describe several adaptive functions of human skin
  4. Provide an argument against the view that skin color is a character that can be used to classify human populations according to a genetic evolutionary hierarchy
  5. Describe the general method and measurement used to quantify skin color, and what such methods show about typical variation between males and females within a population
  6. Explain how skin color comes about, what differs at the mechanistic level in light vs. dark skinned peoples, and how albinos differ from those with average skin pigmentation
  7. Describe the general pattern of skin color in offspring from parents with different skin colors
  8. Describe a possible adaptive tradeoff for melanin production among human populations--what benefits it may provide, and what are the possible costs it may incur
  9. Cite evidence from the history of human migration that skin color may have been maladaptive for northern latitudes
  10. Give an evolutionary explanation for why individuals at intermediate (for example, southern European) latitudes tend to have the greatest capacities for skin color plasticity
  11. Point out the flaws in Murray and Herrnstein's argument for differences in innate intelligence among human races based on the idea that intelligence is heritable
  12. Cite three pieces of evidence suggesting that, although intelligence has a genetic component, differences among ethnic groups are probably due to environmental variation

Lecture 15.2. Sociobiology and human behavior

  1. Explain some assumptions made in seeking a connection between genes and behavior in humans
  2. Give three hypotheses to explain the pattern that genetically-related children are harmed at a lower rate than step-children
  3. Explain how Flinn's study was able to distinguish among these hypotheses, and which hypotheses tended to be ruled out by his data
  4. Explain what Flinn found about the effect of the mother's presence on the treatment of natural and step-children, and how he interpreted this behavior
  5. Explain the motivation for Flinn and England's follow up studies on genetic and step-children
  6. Explain how their methods circumvented the problem of
  7. Explain how their results concerning child health distinguish the effects of environmental conditions from those of genetic relatedness
  8. Explain why Daly and Wilson suggest that homicide is unlikely to be adaptive, but is nevertheless relevant for understanding the evolution of behavior
  9. Describe the function of MHC proteins on the surface of cells, and explain why these genes would produce particularly variable proteins
  10. Explain why there might be a benefit to individual humans who could mate with individuals that coded for very different MHC proteins
  11. Describe the hypothesis proposed by Wedekind et al. with regard to mate choice, and describe the methods they used to test this hypothesis
  12. Explain how their graphical results suggest whether or not women show odor preferences, in terms of pleasantness and intensity, depending on the MHC-type of males
  13. Explain the effect of hormone administration on this result, and suggest an adaptive explanation for this shift in preferences
  14. Describe the evidence they cite in favor of the hypothesis that preferred odors really are related to mate choice decisions

Lecture 16.1. Conservation biology and evolutionary futures

  1. Graph out the general pattern of growth in human populations since the beginnings of agriculture, paying careful attention to the timing and events related to major increases or decreases in population size
  2. Describe changes in human population size and resource use over the past hundred years, and use this as evidence for or against the statement that population growth is the major cause of human alteration of natural habitats
  3. Cite evidence for or against the statement that population problems of underdeveloped nations are the principal cause of resource use and resulting habitat conversion and species loss
  4. Citing relevant figures, argue for or against the idea that humans have come to dominate the Earth's ecosystems
  5. Name two human-induced global changes that are thought to contribute to species loss
  6. Describe the general pattern of temperature relative to the present (1) over most of Earth's history and (2) over the last 1 million years
  7. Describe the methods used by Barry et al. to examine species change at a California intertidal site, and explain what their data suggest about the potential importance of global warming
  8. Describe the time periods over which most forested habitats have been converted to non-forest in Costa Rica and the US
  9. Explain how the two changes named in #31 may interact to further worsen the problem of species extinction
  10. Describe why, under changing environmental conditions, a population may show initial declines but eventual increases in population numbers
  11. Explain why there is a relationship predicted between the probability of extinction and genetic variance in a population