PLOS Science Wednesday: Hi reddit, we’re Arslan and Mark and our PLOS Genetics study shows differences in human nose shape may have evolved due to local adaptation to climate – Ask Us Anything!

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Hi Reddit,

My name is Arslan Zaidi and I am a postdoctoral scholar at Penn State University. My broad research interests revolve around studying the ultimate (evolutionary) and proximate (developmental) causes of human variation.

My name is Mark Shriver and I am a professor of Anthropology at Penn State University. I am interested in studying the evolution of complex traits such as skin pigmentation and facial shape in humans, and in identifying the genetic determinants of these complex phenotypes.

We recently published a paper titled “Investigating the Case of Human Nose Shape and Climate Adaptation” in the March issue of PLOS Genetics. We were broadly interested in how and why facial shape has evolved in humans in our recent history and wanted to focus on one long-standing hypothesis: that differences in nose shape in humans have evolved due to adaptation to climate. We found support for two things: i) nostril width and nose width seem to be evolving faster across populations than expected under genetic drift alone (read: due to divergent selection), and ii) these differences may be driven, at least partly, by local adaptation to temperature and humidity

We will be answering your questions at 1pm ET. Ask Us Anything!

You can follow us on @A_A_Zaidi and @alljustatoms. You can also follow Arslan’s blog on genewiz.wordpress.com

">PLOS Science Wednesday: Hi reddit, we’re Arslan and Mark and our PLOS Genetics study shows differences in human nose shape may have evolved due to local adaptation to climate – Ask Us Anything!