BIT
Bitter Taste Aversion
Class: I - Natural Selection
EPA Total Score: 28 /100
Fischer, A., Gilad, Y., Man, O., & Pääbo, S. (2005). Evolution of bitter taste receptors in humans and apes. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 22(3), 432-436.
Abstract: Bitter taste perception is crucial for the survival of organisms because it enables them to avoid the ingestion of potentially harmful substances. Bitter taste receptors are encoded by a gene family that in humans has been shown to contain 25 putatively functional genes and 8 pseudogenes and in mouse 33 putatively functional genes and 3 pseudogenes. Lineage-specific expansions of bitter taste receptors have taken place in both mouse and human, but very little is known about the evolution of these receptors in primates. We report the analysis of the almost complete repertoires of bitter taste receptor genes in human, great apes, and two Old World monkeys. As a group, these genes seem to be under little selective constraint compared with olfactory receptors and other genes in the studied species. However, in contrast to the olfactory receptor gene repertoire, where humans have a higher proportion of pseudogenes than apes, there is no evidence that the rate of loss of bitter taste receptor genes varies among humans and apes.
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Supporting Evidence
10/100
Submitted by DJGlass
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any supporting Psychological evidence for this EPA.
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10/100
Submitted by DJGlass
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any supporting Hunter-Gatherer evidence for this EPA.
Supporting Evidence is evidence that suggests that this trait is an Evolved Psychological Adaptation (EPA) - i.e., that it has been shaped by natural selection to solve a particular adaptive problem.
Challenging Evidence
0/100
Submitted by DJGlass
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Psychological evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Medical evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Physiological evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Cross-Cultural evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Genetic evidence for this EPA.
0/100
Submitted by DJGlass
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Hunter-Gatherer evidence for this EPA.
Challenging Evidence is evidence that suggests that this trait is not an EPA - e.g., that it is a product of cultural learning or genetic drift, or maybe it does not exist at all. However over each line of evidence for a description.