Solar Irradiance, Survival and Longevity in a Pre-industrial Human Population

Bergeron, Patrick; Milot, Emmanuel; Mayer, Francine M.; Boisvert, Mireille; Réale, Denis; Pelletier, Fanie

doi:10.1007/s10745-014-9671-7

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Other studies on the French-Canadian population further support the link between environmental conditions and survival. Bergeron et al (2014) found a positive relationship between solar irradiance and infant survival at IAC for the same time period as the one covered in the current study. The variance in survival explained by solar irradiance was nevertheless small, possibly because this climatic index reflects a small fraction of the local variation in environmental conditions (due to the limits of climatic data explained in Materials and Methods).…”

Section: Measurement Of Environmental Conditionssupporting

confidence: 78%

Genotype‐by‐environment interactions modulate the rate of microevolution in reproductive timing in humans

2022

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Evidence from natural populations shows that changes in environmental conditions can cause rapid modifications in the evolutionary potential of phenotypes, partly through genotype-by-environment interactions (G×E). Therefore, the overall rate of microevolution should depend on fluctuations in environmental conditions, even when directional selection is sustained over several generations. We tested this hypothesis in a preindustrial human population that experienced a microevolutionary change in age at first reproduction (AFR) of mothers, using the annual infant mortality rate (IMR) as an indicator of environmental conditions during their early life. Using quantitative genetics analyses, we found that G×Es explained a nonnegligible fraction of the additive genetic variance in AFR and in relative fitness, as well as of the genetic covariance between AFR and fitness (i.e., the Robertson-Price covariance). The covariance was stronger for individuals exposed to unfavorable early-life environmental conditions. Our results unravel the presence of G×Es in an important life history trait and its impact on the rate of microevolution, which appears to have been sensitive to short-term fluctuations in local environmental conditions.

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Section: Measurement Of Environmental Conditionssupporting

confidence: 78%

Genotype‐by‐environment interactions modulate the rate of microevolution in reproductive timing in humans

2022

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“…We estimated the yearly population size on the island assuming that a person was present between two events (marriage, birth of a child, death) recorded in the Register (see ref. 24 for more details on population size estimation and validation, Supplementary Fig. 1 ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These criteria provide a strong fit of population size estimated from the Register to that obtained from censuses conducted by the Canadian government (Pearson correlation, r =0.99, t =25.41, P <0.001 and ref. 24 ). As a woman can only have one age at first reproduction, we calculated her lifetime contribution to population growth as the sum of her yearly P t ( i ) .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eco-evolutionary dynamics in a contemporary human population

et al. 2017

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Recent studies of the joint dynamics of ecological and evolutionary processes show that changes in genotype or phenotype distributions can affect population, community and ecosystem processes. Such eco-evolutionary dynamics are likely to occur in modern humans and may influence population dynamics. Here, we study contributions to population growth from detailed genealogical records of a contemporary human population. We show that evolutionary changes in women’s age at first reproduction can affect population growth: 15.9% of variation in individual contribution to population growth over 108 years is explained by mean age at first reproduction and at least one-third of this variation (6.1%) is attributed to the genetic basis of this trait, which showed an evolutionary response to selection during the period studied. Our study suggests that eco-evolutionary processes have modulated the growth of contemporary human populations.

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