Understanding the Adaptive Evolutionary Histories of South American Ancient and Present-Day Populations via Genomics

• Main Authors: John Lindo, Michael DeGiorgio
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-03-01
• Series: Genes
• Subjects: ancient DNA; natural selection; South America
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/12/3/360

The South American continent is remarkably diverse in its ecological zones, spanning the Amazon rainforest, the high-altitude Andes, and Tierra del Fuego. Yet the original human populations of the continent successfully inhabited all these zones, well before the buffering effects of modern technology. Therefore, it is likely that the various cultures were successful, in part, due to positive natural selection that allowed them to successfully establish populations for thousands of years. Detecting positive selection in these populations is still in its infancy, as the ongoing effects of European contact have decimated many of these populations and introduced gene flow from outside of the continent. In this review, we explore hypotheses of possible human biological adaptation, methods to identify positive selection, the utilization of ancient DNA, and the integration of modern genomes through the identification of genomic tracts that reflect the ancestry of the first populations of the Americas.