Anthropologists who study prehistoric humans say their recent research shows climate had a direct impact on body mass but not much on the size of a brain as some previously thought.
Article content
Anthropologists who study prehistoric humans say their recent research shows climate had a direct impact on body mass but not much on the size of their brains as some previously thought.
Advertisement
Article content
Anthropologists Jay Stock, at Western University, and Manuel Will at the University of Tübingen, Germany, joined together to investigate the body and brain size of more than 300 Homo genus fossils from around the world.
The results of their study were published Thursday in the journal Nature Communications.
“The first assumption of most evolutionary biologists is that environments drive most changes in species,” Stock said. “To show it’s only a small effect and to demonstrate that statistically is really important.”
Teaming up with ecological and climate experts from the University of Cambridge, the duo matched each fossil with the specific climate in which it lived during the past million years.
The research shows the impact of climate on the Homo species, but not Homo sapiens who emerged 30,000 years ago.
Researchers found that while temperature swings impacted body size — colder climates led to larger bodies while hotter temperatures produced smaller bodies — there was a “weaker” connection between climate and the size of one’s brain.
Advertisement
Article content
They suggest, because less heat is released from large bodies, they act as a protective shield from the cold.
While correlation between brain size and environment was weaker they did find brains were larger in environments such as steppes and grassland, where the researchers suggest they needed a larger brain because of the more complex task of hunting larger creatures.
“We found that different factors determine brain size and body size; they’re not under the same evolutionary pressures,” said Will. “The environment has a much greater influence on our body size than our brain size.”
The researchers said they used non-traditional approaches to figure out body mass that allowed them to access 10 times the data of previous similar studies.
Advertisement
Article content
“Previous studies have estimated brain and body size from a small number of fossils that are relatively complete,” said Stock. “We found ways to extrapolate data from more incomplete fossils.”
Stock said they hope in the future they can extend the analysis beyond the million years under scrutiny in their paper.
“Many of the most interesting changes in the brains and bodies of our ancestors happened between four million and one million years ago,” said Stock. “In the future, we hope to look at the earlier evolution of traits such as brain size or bipedalism to determine whether there were specific environmental correlates.”
Advertisement
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMibGh0dHBzOi8vbGZwcmVzcy5jb20vbmV3cy9sb2NhbC1uZXdzL2NsaW1hdGUtYWZmZWN0ZWQtYm9kaWVzLW9mLXByZWhpc3RvcmljLWh1bWFucy1idXQtbm90LXRoZWlyLWJyYWlucy1zdHVkedIBmgFodHRwczovL2xmcHJlc3MuY29tL25ld3MvbG9jYWwtbmV3cy9jbGltYXRlLWFmZmVjdGVkLWJvZGllcy1vZi1wcmVoaXN0b3JpYy1odW1hbnMtYnV0LW5vdC10aGVpci1icmFpbnMtc3R1ZHkvd2NtLzBiMTA0M2NkLWNhMTItNGEwMS05YzViLTliNzU5Y2M2OGU2NC9hbXAv?oc=5
2021-07-11 20:10:19Z
52781725712938
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar