Lecture 5 Flashcards
(16 cards)
Cultural Evolutionist
- pushing for the idea of social learning above evolutionary adaptive traits
- diverse environments would’ve made social learning more effective because its quicker
Critique of evolutionary adapting taste for high fats and sugar
it is reductive to say that we have that desire ‘to keep you alive in ancient societies’
-how much of an explanation of modern obesity is it?
(we don’t know that)
Gene-Culture Co-Evolution
we are imitators, adapting in part of our cultural environment.
(e.g., sure there is a mismatch between food and lifestyle, but this is due to cultural evolution more than a genetic one)
Human Behavioural ecology
focuses on explaining how things are adaptive/non-adaptive in the present.
(e.g., comparing how much many individuals have and how healthy their diets are.)
Genomics
advances in the field of genetics that let us read DNA- proteins wrapped around Histones, the structure of the DNA, etc.
RNA transcripts role
it reads genetics code (the letters) which then get expressed as different expressions dependent on the letter combination.
(e. g., CGA gets read as arginine- genetic code)
- this process is the only sense in which there is a genetic code- in the mapping from particular codons in the RNA to their corresponding amino acids
Central dogma of genetics
DNA–>RNA—>Proteins
-one way flow of information, replication off DNA, transcription in RNA, and translation in proteins
What are some way variation occurs at the genetic level?
- Breeding: any two people can create over 8 million unique genotypes
- mutations: can lead to the creation of phenotypes not in parents, usually harmful
- Recombination events: when paired chromosomes can exchange DNA during meiosis is another way variation occurs
Heritability estimates
tell us about characteristics of populations under study, not the characteristic itself.
‘proportion of variation in a phenotypic characteristic associated with genetic variation’
Inheritance (Dupre)
the tendency of offspring to be more similar to their parents than to other members of the population.
Typical definition of ‘heritable’
of a characteristic, affected by variation in genes and therefore transmissible genetically from parent to offspring
Methods of studying heritability
- Twin studies: using MZ or DZ twins
- Adoption studies: are adopted children more like biological parents or adopted parents
Developmental bias
Organisms constructed in development and developmental processes non-randomly direct selection
Plasticity
generates traits well suited to the environment which directs further selection
Niche Construction
Organisms often co-construct and coevolve with their environments and in so doing change the environment within which they evolve
Extra-genetic inheritance
epigenetic, or socially transmitted behaviour
