Humans May Be the Most Adaptive Species
Constant climate change may have given Homo sapiens their flexibility
EVOLUTIONARY CHALLENGE: The origin of every hominid genus, including our own, appears to fall within one or another window of climatic variability. Now, with planetary warming occurring at a breakneck pace, human adaptability is likely to face its biggest test.Image: Sebastian Niedlich/Flickr
In the 5 million years since early hominids first emerged from east Africa's Rift Valley, the Earth's climate has grown increasingly erratic. Over cycles lasting hundreds of thousands of years, arid regions of central Africa were overrun by forests, forests gave way to grasslands and contiguous landscapes were fractured by deep lakes.
It was within the context of this swiftly changing landscape that humans evolved their sizable brains and capacity for adaptive behavior, said Rick Potts, director of the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History. In such a world, the ability to think creatively, to imagine novel solutions to survival threats, proved to be a major asset, he said./.../
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