HSCI 216 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Human Ecology, Menopause, Natural Selection

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Health Sciences
• Course: HSCI 216
• Professor: Pablo Nepomnaschy

Document Summary

Two types of answers: traditional health sciences and biology. Proximate answers: mechanisms: ecology and evolution. This course will focus on ultimate answers offered by the field of: evolutionary medicine. Em incorporates the theoretical frameworks of ecology and evolution to the study of health and disease. Study of humans as mammalian species that attempts to achieve its basic biological goals while it interacts (affects and is affected by) its ecological context (natural, social & built environments) B/c differences in survival and reproduction lead to evolution. A change in the genetic makeup of a population between cohorts. How does it occur: natural selection, genetic drift, gene flow. Individuals within a species vary: some of that variation is linked to differences in survival and reproduction, some of that variation is linked to genetic differences. Differential reproduction consequence of differential conditions to survive and reproduce in an ecological context. Surviving population of reproductively mature variation in reproduction: result: next generation.