Evolutionary mismatch.

Abstract

The adaptive landscape of the ancestral human environments selected for a suite of genetic, behavioural and physiological traits, many of which persist in contemporary human populations. The transition to modernity [1] rapidly reshaped these environments, yet the slower rate of biological evolution limits phenotypic change. This results in evolutionary mismatch, defined here as the phenomenon by which previously adaptive alleles are no longer favoured in a new environment (Fig. 1). This definition operates across space and time, while other uses of mismatch are applied over the life course [2, 3]. EXAMPLE IN HUMAN BIOLOGY AND PUBLIC HEALTH