Speaking of demography, this is an interesting study by Claudia Moreau and colleagues at the Université de Montréal and the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi. Science Daily has a nice summary of the paper, as well. The researchers were able to analyze about 300 years of genealogical data from a region within Quebec and look at which families were successful at having children (and grandchildren) relative to the process of population expansion and migration into the region. It turns out those living along the front wave of the expansion end up making a much greater genetic contribution than those living in the “core” of the region.
The authors caution against extrapolating too far to human evolutionary history, which is characterized by repeated expansion and colonization events, but it is interesting to consider how this study might hold up in a population of hunter-gatherers rather than farmers. The effect the authors observe is largely a product of increased effective fertility in females, something harder to imagine in a more resource-constrained subsistence group.
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1. Claudia Moreau, Claude Bhérer, Hélène Vézina, Michèle Jomphe, Damian Labuda, and Laurent Excoffier. Deep human genealogies reveal a selective advantage to be on an expanding wave front. Science, 2011 DOI: 10.1126/science.1212880
