Changing the Gene Pool of Northern Populations: 'Decline of Ethnic Groups' or Adaptation to the 'Post-traditional' World
The numerically small indigenous populations of the North maintain and expand their population size mainly by increasing the number of descendants from inter-ethnic marriages. Thus, among the Kola Sami, with a stable group size, the share of descendants from interethnic marriages increased from 30% in 1958-67 to 90% in 2002. A similar situation can be found among the Mansi of Western Siberia, Chukchi etc. This inevitably leads to changes in the gene pools of populations. According to popular opinion, this can cause the disappearance of ancient adaptive complexes and the spread of desadaptive genotypes, which increase the risk of spreading the "diseases of civilization" among native populations.Are these concerns justified in the current social and demographic situation?
Today, about a third of the indigenous northerners of Russia lead an urban lifestyle. Urbanization is accompanied by a nutritional transition, including an increment in the purchase of standardized foods rich in saturated fats, sugars, and refined foods. The modern conditions of life and nutrition of the northerners differ sharply from those in which the formation of ancient anthropological adaptations took place, which were fixed in the gene pools of indigenous populations.
The present report analyzes the transformations in the frequencies of genes that determine the activity of digestive enzymes that affect carbohydrate, fat and mineral metabolism in the populations of modern Northerners.
A number of examples show that the influx of genes from other populations does not necessarily lead to a decline in the stability of the group. On the contrary, as a result of intensive genetic mixing with other groups (mainly Russian), the northern aborigines of Russia have developed a new metabolic complex that meets the new living and eating conditions in which an increasing part of the Khanty, Nenets, Chukchi, and Sami people find themselves.
We see changes in the gene pools of indigenous Northerners as normal and inevitable, and calls for 'preserving the gene pool of indigenous peoples' and 'maintaining human biodiversity' as a manifestation of segregation and apartheid.
Speakers : Andrey Kozlov, Leading Research Fellow at IL SIR, HSE University
Discussant: Professor Igor Nikitin, Moscow State University of Technology and Management
When : June 16th, 5:00 p.m. (Moscow time)
Language: Russian
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Andrey Kozlov
Leading Research Fellow