Khrameeva et al. found that Europeans possess many genes of Neandertals origin for the catabolism of lipids. My question is if these findings can be interpreted as pointing to a relatively high consumption of fats among Neandertals.
Khrameeva, E. E., Bozek, K., He, L., Yan, Z., Jiang, X., Wei, Y., ... & Khaitovich, P. (2014). Neanderthal ancestry drives evolution of lipid catabolism in contemporary Europeans. Nature communications, 5.
No. The fact that Europeans possess many genes of Neanderthal origin for the catabolism of lipids - and therefore a selective advantage over Europeans without those genes - might suggest a number of possibilities. Some of these might be:
(1) Selective advantage provided by DNA, coding for an unknown advantage that is closely linked to the lipid catabolism traits observed;
(2) A need for increased lipid catabolism because of higher fat consumption; and perhaps even more likely ...
(3) A need for more efficient lipid catabolism to convert stored lipids to energy and other needed constituents in times of nutritional deficiency or climate change.
knowing how changes in lipid catabolism, environment, diet, and other factors, provided early Europeans with a selective advantage over those where no such gene modification is absolutely necessary to understanding why such a change provided a selective advantage.
Thanks James. The question remains why would the Neandertals have so many derived genes for lipid catabolism. One of the alternatives you presented, increased fat consumption can also it seems be applied to Neandertals if I understand correctly.
there also were some interesting investigations from Y chromosome bacground, (althogh point of interest was different, principle basically adds in additional parameters to comprehensive assessment of initial hypothesis ) please see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19107149 and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19888303
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