The Genomics of Human Local Adaptation

Conversation
1

I haven’t read this new review yet but I’m sure it’s interesting and could be fun to discuss. Here are the highlights:

  • Local adaptation has critically contributed to the (modest) genetic and phenotypic differentiation that exists among human groups, including in health-related traits that contribute to population health disparities.

  • Local adaptation has happened on alleles of diverse origin (on new, pre-existing, and introgressed alleles) and through diverse mechanisms (monogenic and polygenic adaptation).

  • Ancient DNA will play a key role in our understanding of local adaptation by improving inferences of past events. Further, it has revealed the importance of adaptive introgression, by which modern humans acquired adaptative alleles from archaic humans.

  • Novel analysis methods will improve our power to identify targets of local adaptation, especially those with weak signatures. Combining genetic and environmental information promises to improve the identification of genomic targets and the corresponding selective force.

https://www.cell.com/trends/genetics/fulltext/S0168-9525(20)30070-6

7 Likes
2

This is interesting. What did they find in addition to the usual suspects?

3

Here’s a snapshot from a summary table

image
image852×810 152 KB

2 Likes
4

It’s a review article on the known examples, explaining how to tease out the origins of the new alleles. Focuses on genomics. It’s a really good basic review!

5

7 posts were split to a new topic: Hector’s objections to adaptation