Anthropological Institute and Museum, University of Zurich, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland.
Curr Biol. 2011 Nov 8;21(21):1808-12. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2011.09.017. Epub 2011 Oct 20.
Although geographic variation in an organism's traits is often seen as a consequence of selection on locally adaptive genotypes accompanied by canalized development [1], developmental plasticity may also play a role [2, 3], especially in behavior [4]. Behavioral plasticity includes both individual learning and social learning of local innovations ("culture"). Cultural plasticity is the undisputed and dominant explanation for geographic variation in human behavior. It has recently also been suggested to hold for various primates and birds [5], but this proposition has been met with widespread skepticism [6-8]. Here, we analyze parallel long-term studies documenting extensive geographic variation in behavioral ecology, social organization, and putative culture of orangutans [9] (genus Pongo). We show that genetic differences among orangutan populations explain only very little of the geographic variation in behavior, whereas environmental differences explain much more, highlighting the importance of developmental plasticity. Moreover, variation in putative cultural variants is explained by neither genetic nor environmental differences, corroborating the cultural interpretation. Thus, individual and cultural plasticity provide a plausible pathway toward local adaptation in long-lived organisms such as great apes and formed the evolutionary foundation upon which human culture was built.
虽然生物体特征的地理变异通常被认为是对局部适应性基因型选择的结果，同时伴随着 canalized 发育[1]，但发育可塑性也可能起作用[2,3]，尤其是在行为方面[4]。行为可塑性包括个体学习和对本地创新的社会学习（“文化”）。文化可塑性是人类行为地理变异的无可争议的主导解释。最近也有人提出它也适用于各种灵长类动物和鸟类[5]，但这一主张遭到了广泛的怀疑[6-8]。在这里，我们分析了平行的长期研究，这些研究记录了猩猩（属 Pongo）在行为生态学、社会组织和所谓的文化方面的广泛地理变异[9]。我们表明，猩猩种群之间的遗传差异仅能解释行为地理变异的很小一部分，而环境差异则能解释更多，突出了发育可塑性的重要性。此外，所谓的文化变体的变异既不能用遗传差异也不能用环境差异来解释，这证实了文化的解释。因此，个体和文化可塑性为长寿生物（如大猿类）的局部适应提供了一条可行的途径，并为人类文化的形成奠定了进化基础。
