Pair of lice lost or parasites regained: the evolutionary history of anthropoid primate lice

Reed, David L.; Light, Jessica E.; Allen, Julie M.; Kirchman, Jeremy J.

doi:10.1186/1741-7007-5-7

Cited by 179 publications

(153 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…The results of this study suggest that females of these two Australopithecus species were transporting proportionately large infants, a situation that would have rendered arboreality a more dangerous activity. This is further exacerbated by the absence of a grasping toe in A. afarensis (38,39), the elimination of dorsal riding as an option for infant hominids (40), and the possibility that body hair was thinning by 3.3 Myr ago (41). With a limited capacity to grasp, Australopithecus infants may have been parked (42) or actively carried by their bipedal mothers, at times leaving these females with only a single arm free for climbing.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A shift toward birthing relatively large infants early in human evolution

DeSilva

2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

145

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It has long been argued that modern human mothers give birth to proportionately larger babies than apes do. Data presented here from human and chimpanzee infant:mother dyads confirm this assertion: humans give birth to infants approximately 6% of their body mass, compared with approximately 3% for chimpanzees, even though the female body weights of the two species are moderately convergent. Carrying a relatively large infant both preand postnatally has important ramifications for birthing strategies, social systems, energetics, and locomotion. However, it is not clear when the shift to birthing large infants occurred over the course of human evolution. Here, known and often conserved relationships between adult brain mass, neonatal brain mass, and neonatal body mass in anthropoids are used to estimate birthweights of extinct hominid taxa. These estimates are resampled with direct measurements of fossil postcrania from female hominids, and also compared with estimates of female body mass to assess when human-like infant:mother mass ratios (IMMRs) evolved. The results of this study suggest that 4.4-Myr-old Ardipithecus possessed IMMRs similar to those found in African apes, indicating that a low IMMR is the primitive condition in hominids. Australopithecus females, in contrast, had significantly heavier infants compared with dimensions of the femoral head (n = 7) and ankle (n = 7) than what is found in chimpanzees, and are estimated to have birthed neonates more than 5% of their body mass. Carrying such proportionately large infants may have limited arboreality in Australopithecus females and may have selected for alloparenting behavior earlier in human evolution than previously thought.climbing | hominin | Homo | cooperative breeding

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A shift toward birthing relatively large infants early in human evolution

DeSilva

2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

145

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“…Hence this clearly shows that in traditional foraging societies (probably reflecting those of early Homo species) male provisioning is vital for surviving of female and offspring (whose net production is also obviously negative). The essential role of paternal care is further strengthened given decreased mobility and higher energy expenditures [59] of females carrying large infants [60] with lost ability to ride dorsally [61,62].…”

Section: The Third Transition: Human Brain and Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

It Takes Two to Evolve Too. The Hypothesis on Three Primary Communication Transitions in Evolution

Kovalev

2017

Preprint

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Abstract:Currently there is little doubt left on the symbiogenetic nature of eukaryotes -genomes of archaeon and bacterium participated in shaping a genome of last eukaryotic common ancestor in equal albeit asymmetric manner, while a merger event itself indicated the advent of a new domain of life. The "symbiogenetic" framework of interaction of two partners is proposed, outlining similar steps essential for three major advents: the origin of life, the origin of complex life and the origin of humans. Given the immense importance of proper energy source for the evolution of life it seems plausible that for any principal increase in complexity, a partnership with a novel energy donor is required. Moreover, a "language" elaborated in the course of communication of partners might have been a prerequisite for a subsequent increase in complexity. Transitions, which led to RNA-protein world, eukaryotes and human brain, resulted in advent of complex languages via communication onsets between two entities in close partnership. Accordingly this further facilitated formation of first cells, multicellular organisms and human society.

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“…There has been no study of the variation in the relative rates of DNA substitution between hosts and parasites across the genome. The codivergence event between humans, chimpanzees and their lice (genus Pediculus) is well documented and provides an excellent calibration point for comparing rates of genetic divergence [10][11][12]. The genomes of humans (Homo sapiens), common chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and the human body louse (Pediculus humanus) have already been sequenced [13 -15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rates of genomic divergence in humans, chimpanzees and their lice

et al. 2014

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The rate of DNA mutation and divergence is highly variable across the tree of life. However, the reasons underlying this variation are not well understood. Comparing the rates of genetic changes between hosts and parasite lineages that diverged at the same time is one way to begin to understand differences in genetic mutation and substitution rates. Such studies have indicated that the rate of genetic divergence in parasites is often faster than that of their hosts when comparing single genes. However, the variation in this relative rate of molecular evolution across different genes in the genome is unknown. We compared the rate of DNA sequence divergence between humans, chimpanzees and their ectoparasitic lice for 1534 protein-coding genes across their genomes. The rate of DNA substitution in these orthologous genes was on average 14 times faster for lice than for humans and chimpanzees. In addition, these rates were positively correlated across genes. Because this correlation only occurred for substitutions that changed the amino acid, this pattern is probably produced by similar functional constraints across the same genes in humans, chimpanzees and their ectoparasites.

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Pair of lice lost or parasites regained: the evolutionary history of anthropoid primate lice

Cited by 179 publications

References 39 publications

A shift toward birthing relatively large infants early in human evolution

A shift toward birthing relatively large infants early in human evolution

It Takes Two to Evolve Too. The Hypothesis on Three Primary Communication Transitions in Evolution

Rates of genomic divergence in humans, chimpanzees and their lice

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