March 04, 2012

Chimpanzees are NOT all alike. In fact they are LESS 'all alike' than Humans. "the genetic diversity of these different chimp populations, even those who are practically right on top of each other, is significantly greater than that found in humans separated by entire continents."
posted by oneswellfoop 12 years ago
  • So I assume that these chimps that live very close to one another never get it on with the chimps in the other groups? Interesting. Humans seem to love to get it on with other humans that are in other groups.
  • Foop, I liked it!
  • Me too! That cartoon especially. It really sums up the question of conservation as opposed to... to what? Going native? Should we cheer on the taxonomic lumpers or the splitters? The actual paper says, “Tellingly, use of only mitochondrial DNA variation to classify individuals is erroneous in 4 of 54 cases, reinforcing the dangers of basing demographic inference on a single locus and implying that the demographic history of the species is more complicated than that suggested analyses based solely on mtDNA.” Yet mitochondria is the sole basis for the we're all descended from one female ancestor theory, also known as the Eve theory... Oh well. Another straw dog blows away. So instead they compare the haplotypes (genetic markers of races, subspecies or whatever) and the colored graphs actually only show slightly more seepage between human types - at least so far in the history of our one global cage... As their habitats shrink and they're put butt up against each other, we'll see what happens to the chimps.