RE: paleonet peppered moth, out of Africa (only a question for curiosty, all others please delete)

["Peg Yacobucci" <mmyacob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

I have a possible answer to Peter's question:

-----Original Message-----
From: paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk On Behalf Of Peter Paul Smolka
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 5:48 PM
To: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
Subject: Re: paleonet peppered moth, out of Africa (only a question for
curiosty, all others please delete)

<snipped>

It is often said that Europeans got pale for reasons of paleoclimatic
conditions in the Pleistocene/Holocene.

On the other hand (here the question): The Asians (Siberians,
Indians (in the sense of North America) and Inuit ("Eskimos")
experienced similar conditions (also ice margins and thus precipitation,
lack of insolation in North America).

As the insolation was most likely comparable: Why didn t they get pale?

And: Why did they get a different skin and some (see research the Wella
company had to do) different hairs?

Did they for example get earlier or later as we out of Africa?
<snipped>

-----End Original Message-----


To even ask the question this way is to assume that all people, everywhere,
will always change in the same direction given roughly similar environments.
However, species are made up of many different populations, and each
population will experience different random mutations.

I would think that mutations for low melanin levels just happened to occur
and successfully persist in a population of people living in Europe.  Hence,
the relatively melanin-deficient skin of many Europeans is just a little
historical quirk, an odd little change that "just happened to happen" in one
population.  It is *not* a trait that *has* to happen in any high-latitude
group.

Of course, this is just my hypothesis -- anyone know of evidence to support
or refute it?

Peg Yacobucci
Associate Professor
Bowling Green State University
Department of Geology
190 Overman Hall
Bowling Green, OH  43403
(419) 372-7982