Nature子刊：非洲雨林狩猎-集采者和农耕者之间的基因交换

由法国巴斯德研究所领导的一个研究组探讨了农耕者及他们所引入的农耕方式对非洲雨林狩猎-集采者的影响。该研究为了解农耕对这些人群的社会影响提供了线索，同时也突显了最近发生在这两个人群之间的基因交换。相关文章发表于2014年2月4日的《Nature Communications》杂志上。

距今大约5,000年前农耕在非洲中西部的出现，引发了农业和定居生活方式在整个撒哈拉以南非洲地区的传播。然而，一些雨林狩猎-集采者人群仍继续以流动部落形式生活，农业文化和技术的扩散对雨林狩猎-集采者的人口历史的影响目前在很大程度上仍不清楚。

Lluis Quintana-Murci及同事从整个撒哈拉以南非洲地区的现代雨林狩猎-集采者和农耕者那里采集、生成了全基因组范围的单核苷酸多态性数据，以此来研究这些人群之间的遗传多样性和演化关系。

他们发现，这两个人群之间的基因流动只是在过去1,000年才出现，说明这两个人群之间最初的互动仅限于社会-经济思想如工具及植物栽培技术等的交流。这些基因组特征进一步表明，非洲农耕人群的扩大是在农业出现之前发生的，因此不能被归因于后者。

原文摘要：

The impact of agricultural emergence on the genetic history of African rainforest hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists

Etienne Patin, Katherine J. Siddle, Guillaume Laval, Hélène Quach, Christine Harmant,Noémie Becker, Alain Froment, BéatrICE Régnault, Laure Lemée, Simon Gravel, Jean-Marie Hombert, Lolke Van der Veen, Nathaniel J. Dominy, George H. Perry, Luis B. Barreiro, Paul Verdu, Evelyne Heyer & Lluís Quintana-Murci

The emergence of agriculture in West-Central Africa approximately 5,000 years ago, profoundly modified the cultural landscape and mode of subsistence of most sub-Saharan populations. How this major innovation has had an impact on the genetic history of rainforest hunter-gatherers—historically referred to as ‘pygmies’—and agriculturalists, however, remains poorly understood. Here we report genome-wide SNP data from these populations located west-to-east of the equatorial rainforest. We find that hunter-gathering populations present up to 50% of farmer genomic ancestry, and that substantial admixture began only within the last 1,000 years. Furthermore, we show that the historical population sizes characterizing these communities already differed before the introduction of agriculture. Our results suggest that the first socio-economic interactions between rainforest hunter-gatherers and farmers introduced by the spread of farming were not accompanied by immediate, extensive genetic exchanges and occurred on a backdrop of two groups already differentiated by their specialization in two ecotopes with differing carrying capacities.

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