Trivers R, Manning J T, Thornhill R, Singh D, McGuire M
Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1414, USA.
Hum Biol. 1999 Jun;71(3):417-30.
Fluctuating asymmetry, small deviations from perfect bilateral symmetry, is negatively correlated with health and positively correlated with sexual selection in human adults, but the accumulation, persistence, and fitness implications of asymmetries during childhood are largely unknown. Here, we introduce the Jamaican Symmetry Project, a long-term study of fluctuating asymmetry and its physical and behavioral correlates in rural Jamaican children. The project is based on an initial sample of 285 children (156 boys and 129 girls), aged 5 to 11 years. We describe the design of the project and the methodology of measuring 10 paired morphometric traits. All traits except hand width showed fluctuating asymmetry. Fluctuating asymmetries of the legs tended to be related and were less than half as great as fluctuating asymmetries of the arms and ears. Therefore the legs may show high developmental stability resulting from selection for mechanical efficiency. A fluctuating asymmetry composite score revealed that boys have significantly lower fluctuating asymmetry than girls and that this effect resides mainly in the elbows. There were significant positive relationships between composite fluctuating asymmetry and age, height, and weight, but multiple regression analyses showed that age was negatively related to fluctuating asymmetry, whereas body size was positively correlated. These findings are compared with results from recent English studies.
波动不对称，即与完美双侧对称存在的微小偏差，在成年人类中与健康呈负相关，与性选择呈正相关，但儿童期不对称的积累、持续存在及其对健康的影响在很大程度上尚不清楚。在此，我们介绍牙买加对称项目，这是一项对牙买加农村儿童波动不对称及其身体和行为相关性的长期研究。该项目基于一个由285名5至11岁儿童（156名男孩和129名女孩）组成的初始样本。我们描述了该项目的设计以及测量10对形态特征的方法。除手宽外，所有特征均表现出波动不对称。腿部的波动不对称往往具有相关性，且其程度不到手臂和耳朵波动不对称程度的一半。因此，腿部可能因对机械效率的选择而表现出较高的发育稳定性。一个波动不对称综合评分显示，男孩的波动不对称明显低于女孩，且这种差异主要体现在肘部。综合波动不对称与年龄、身高和体重之间存在显著的正相关关系，但多元回归分析表明，年龄与波动不对称呈负相关，而身体大小呈正相关。我们将这些发现与近期英国研究的结果进行了比较。
