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The demographic transition influences variance in fitness and selection on height and BMI in rural Gambia.

ABSTRACT: Recent human history is marked by demographic transitions characterized by declines in mortality and fertility. By influencing the variance in those fitness components, demographic transitions can affect selection on other traits. Parallel to changes in selection triggered by demography per se, relationships between fitness and anthropometric traits are also expected to change due to modification of the environment. Here we explore for the first time these two main evolutionary consequences of demographic transitions using a unique data set containing survival, fertility, and anthropometric data for thousands of women in rural Gambia from 1956-2010. We show how the demographic transition influenced directional selection on height and body mass index (BMI). We observed a change in selection for both traits mediated by variation in fertility: selection initially favored short females with high BMI values but shifted across the demographic transition to favor tall females with low BMI values. We demonstrate that these differences resulted both from changes in fitness variance that shape the strength of selection and from shifts in selective pressures triggered by environmental changes. These results suggest that demographic and environmental trends encountered by current human populations worldwide are likely to modify, but not stop, natural selection in humans.

SUBMITTER: Courtiol A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3668323 | biostudies-literature | 2013 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The demographic transition influences variance in fitness and selection on height and BMI in rural Gambia.

Courtiol Alexandre A Rickard Ian J IJ Lummaa Virpi V Prentice Andrew M AM Fulford Anthony J C AJ Stearns Stephen C SC

Current biology : CB 20130425 10

Recent human history is marked by demographic transitions characterized by declines in mortality and fertility. By influencing the variance in those fitness components, demographic transitions can affect selection on other traits. Parallel to changes in selection triggered by demography per se, relationships between fitness and anthropometric traits are also expected to change due to modification of the environment. Here we explore for the first time these two main evolutionary consequences of d ...[more]

PMID: 23623548

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Project description:The Karlberg model of human growth describes the infancy, childhood, and puberty (ICP) stages as continuous and overlapping, and defined by transitions driven by sequential additional effects of several endocrine factors that shape the growth trajectory and resultant adult size. Previous research has suggested that a delayed transition from the infancy to the childhood growth stage contributes to sub-optimal growth outcomes. A new method developed to analyze the structure of centile crossing in early life has emerged as a potential tool for identifying the infancy-childhood transition (ICT), through quantifying patterns of adjacent monthly weight-for-age z-score (WAZ) deviation correlations. Using this method, the infancy-childhood transition was identified as taking place at around 12 months of age in two cohorts of UK infants. Here, we apply this method to data collected as part of a longitudinal growth study in rural Gambia [the Hormonal and Epigenetic Regulators of Growth, or HERO-G study, N = 212 (F = 99, M = 113)], in order to identify the ICT and assess whether timing of this transition differs across groups based on sex or birth seasonality. We calculated Pearson correlation coefficients for adjacent monthly WAZ score deviations. Based on the patterns of change in the correlation structure over time, our results suggest that the infancy-childhood transition occurs at around 9 months of age in rural Gambian infants. This points to an accelerated ICT compared to UK infants, rather than a delayed ICT. A comparatively later transition, seen in UK infants, allows maximal extension of the high rates of growth during the infancy stage; an earlier transition as seen in Gambian infants cuts short this period of rapid growth, potentially impacting on growth outcomes in childhood while diverting energy into other processes critical to responses to acute infectious challenges. Growth in later developmental stages in this population offers an extended window for catch-up.

Dataset Information

The demographic transition influences variance in fitness and selection on height and BMI in rural Gambia.

Publications

The demographic transition influences variance in fitness and selection on height and BMI in rural Gambia.

Similar Datasets

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