ArticlePLoS biology2021
The evolution of group differences in changing environments.
Article in PLoS biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 1 citations in OpenAlex.
- Genomic insights into natural selection in recent human history.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2026Review
- Article
- Quantifying direct genetic signal captured by principal component adjustment.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Representation in genetic studies affects inference about genetic architecture.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Polygenic prediction of human complex traits using ancient DNA.Current opinion in genetics & development · 2025Review
- Predicting the direction of phenotypic difference.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Natural selection acting on complex traits hampers the predictive accuracy of polygenic scores in ancient samples.American journal of human genetics · 2025Article
- Article
- Error rates in QST-FST comparisons depend on genetic architecture and estimation procedures.Genetics · 2025Article
- Error rates inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Predicting the direction of phenotypic difference.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Analysis of admixed Greenlandic siblings shows that the mean genotypic values for metabolic phenotypes differ between Inuit and Europeans.Genome medicine · 2024Article
- A phenome-wide association and Mendelian randomisation study of alcohol use variants in a diverse cohort comprising over 3 million individuals.EBioMedicine · 2024Article
- Interpreting population- and family-based genome-wide association studies in the presence of confounding.PLoS biology · 2024Article
- Heritability within groups is uninformative about differences among groups: Cases from behavioral, evolutionary, and statistical genetics.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Heritability within groups is uninformative about differences among groups: cases from behavioral, evolutionary, and statistical genetics.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Differences between male and female height in Early Neolithic Europe are likely to have been driven by culture.Nature human behaviour · 2024Article
- Socio-cultural practices may have affected sex differences in stature in Early Neolithic Europe.Nature human behaviour · 2024Article
- Unveiling recent and ongoing adaptive selection in human populations.PLoS biology · 2024Article
- Applying an evolutionary mismatch framework to understand disease susceptibility.PLoS biology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The selection pressures that have shaped the evolution of complex traits in humans remain largely unknown, and in some contexts highly contentious, perhaps above all where they concern mean trait differences among groups. To date, the discussion has focused on whether such group differences have any genetic basis, and if so, whether they are without fitness consequences and arose via random genetic drift, or whether they were driven by selection for different trait optima in different environments. Here, we highlight a plausible alternative: that many complex traits evolve under stabilizing selection in the face of shifting environmental effects. Under this scenario, there will be rapid evolution at the loci that contribute to trait variation, even when the trait optimum remains the same. These considerations underscore the strong assumptions about environmental effects that are required in ascribing trait differences among groups to genetic differences.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.