BIOLOGY 1M03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Stabilizing Selection, Molecular Genetics, Mutation
11 Dec 2015
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Human evolution: brain size evolution, highly accelerated regions of. Study of mammals in general suggests that increased brain size correlated with reduced fat levels and less so with reduced digestive system. Homo may have had a reduction in both fat and digestive system: efficient bipedal locomotion, stead and high quality food supply (partly due to cooking) Cognitive buffering (primary adaptive functions of a large brain is to buffer individuals against environmental challenges by facilitating the construction of behavioural responses) Should increase survival rates and favour a longer reproductive life, thereby partially compensating for the costs of delayed reproduction associated with the need to grow a large brain. We propose that during human evolution improved diet quality, allomaternal subsidies, cognitive buffering, re. They"re just drifting: some changes may be favoured by natural selection. Doesn"t matter we see different sequences, it codes for same protein.
