Surviving the heights: Environmental adaptations and multispecies genetics in the Andes
Kelsey Jorgensen
Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Anthropology, UCLA
Human populations have thrived in the Peruvian Andes for thousands of years despite extreme environmental stressors of hypoxia, cold temperatures, and times of food scarcity. These evolutionary environmental pressures have shaped unique genetic adaptations and continue to influence health in human populations today. In this talk, I bridge genotype-phenotype to identify genetic variants in modern Peruvians linked to diet and high-altitude resulting from evolutionary environmental adaptation. In addition, I explore this intersection of biology, culture, and environment to infer ancient human migration patterns across the Andes in the absence of aDNA by using multispecies genetics.