Lec. 4 Dietary Adaptations

Question 1

What did the crew of the HMS Beagle do with the powerful evidence for
evolution in the form of galapagos tortoise skeletons?

Answer 1

They ate the tortoises and threw the bones over board!

Question 2

What unusual adaptation is evident in the giant panda’s front paws?

Answer 2

They evolved an extra digit to hold bamboo.

Question 3

Which diet is associated with larger relative brain size in non-human
primates, leaf eating or fruit eating?

Answer 3

Fruit eating.

Question 4

What is the Expensive Tissue Hypothesis in the context for the evolution of the human diet?

Answer 4

The idea that there exist a direct trade off between gut size and brain size.

Question 5

Why is meat inside bone safer to consume?

Answer 5

Much less exposure to microbes, takes much longer to get contaminated.

Question 6

Name an example of plant insect symbiosis that improves plant protection from herbivores?

Answer 6

Ant-Acacias, where the plant houses and feeds the ants and the ants “earn their
keep” by attacking any animals trying to feed on the trees.

Question 7

How can a plant eating insect adapt to sticky and toxic plant latex?

Answer 7

The Insect can drain the leaves of much of the noxious latex by severing major latex vessels before eating the leaf.

Question 8

How can a herbivore adapt to higher silicate content in grass that it eats?

Answer 8

Evolving higher crowns on its teeth to protect against premature wear.

Question 9

What are tannins named after?

Answer 9

Tanning animal skin into leather.

Question 10

How can animal saliva counteract plant anti nutrients?

Answer 10

Saliva contains cystatin proteins that binds tannins to negate their effects.

Question 11

How do phytates act as anti-nutrients?

Answer 11

They sequester minerals, making them unavailable to animals.

Question 12

What are saponins named after?

Answer 12

soap, because they are detergents/

Question 13

How is soap made traditionally?

Answer 13

Cooking a combination fats with lye

Question 14

What is a lectin?

Answer 14

Lectins are proteins that can bind sugars (glycans = mono, oligo- or polysaccharides).

Question 15

Where are lectins found in nature?

Answer 15

Lectins are found in plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, archaea, and even viruses

Question 16

What does the term hemagglutinin mean?

Answer 16

A molecule that causes red blood cells to stick together (heme=blood; agglutinate=stick together)

Question 17

How does hemagglutination look in a round bottom test tube, compared to control blood that is not treated with a lectin?

Answer 17

Hemagglutinated red blood cells remain in suspension (pink), while nonhemagglutinate red blood cells sink to the bottom and appear as a dark red dot.

Question 18

What are lectins used for in biology labs?

Answer 18

Staining different cell and tissue types in basic and biomedical research (histology and pathology).

Question 19

Name an infamous lectin that is a lectin.

Answer 19

Ricin, extracted from castor bean seeds.

Question 20

What are alkaloids?

Answer 20

Secondary products made mostly by plants that have many biological activity including causing pain and stimulating the nervous system.

Question 21

Why should we avoid eating green potatoes?

Answer 21

The green tissue of potatoes contains toxic alkaloid (solanine) that is heat stable and thus resistant to cooking.

Question 22

What are protease inhibitors?

Answer 22

Molecules that block proteases from cutting other proteins.

Question 23

List 18 different herbs

Answer 23

1.Rosemary,
2.Bay leaf,
3.Curry leaf,
4.Siam ginger (Galangal, kha),
5.Turmeric,
6. Cardamon,
7. Mint,
8. Peppermint,
9. Siam basil,
10. Genovese basil,
11.Lavender,
12.Cilantro (coriander leaves),
13.Lemon verbena,
14.Lemon balm,
15.Thyme,
16.Oregano,
17.Sage,
18. Italian Parsley,
19. Shiso,
20. Lemon grass,
21. Kaffir Lime leaves.

Question 24

Name two famous plant products that are terpenoids:

Answer 24

Latex rubber (polyisoprene) and menthol (monoterpenoid)

Question 25

What protects pine seeds from predation?

Answer 25

Tough pine cones, that only open up shortly before the seeds are ready to spread and a hard other shell.

Question 26

Mention four different ways in which anti-nutrients can be reduced in food plants.

Answer 26

leaching, cooking, fermenting, and germinating

Question 27

Give an example of a mycotoxin.

Answer 27

Aflatoxin from Aspergillus fungus

Question 28

Give an example of an aquatic biotoxin:

Answer 28

algal toxin from cyanobacteria.

Question 29

Apart from sugars freed from cellulose, what other molecules do foregut
fermenting leaf eating monkeys obtain from their gut bacteria?

Answer 29

They obtain nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) from the bacteria that the monkeys also digest.

Question 30

What is pemmican?

PEMMICAN

Answer 30

A nutritious traditional blend of lean meat, fat and dried fruit.

Question 31

What is rabbit starvation?

Answer 31

A life threatening condition due to a diet too rich in lean meat.

Question 32

Which is older, our species Homo sapiens or the use of fire?

Answer 32

The use of fire.

Question 33

What can honey guide bird genetics teach us about human fire use?

Answer 33

The ancient divergence between bird lineages that do or do not interact with humans, point to the deep age of fire use by humans.

Question 34

How could honey become toxic?

Answer 34

If bees collect nectar from flowers of toxic plants.

Question 35

What did Claude Levi-Strauss, the late famous French Anthropologist get really wrong about cooking and biology?

Answer 35

That cooking had little or no biological effects.

Question 36

Give two example of how protein rich food can be treated other than cooking with heat.

Answer 36

Rotting and fermentation.

Question 37

Why can cooking be considered as a niche-broadening technology?

Answer 37

Better digestion, less chewing, detoxification, conservation of much larger number of food items to chose from

Question 38

What happens to starches and proteins during cooking?

Answer 38

Starches gelatinize and proteins denature, they both become easier to digest

Question 39

What is favism?

Answer 39

Disease resulting from inability to degrade toxin in fava bean due to adaptation to malaria.

Question 40

Why have monkeys and apes and humans lost the ability to make their own vitamin C?

Answer 40

Fruit-rich diets over million of years, have buffer the inability to make the vitamin

Question 41

What is the connection between fruit eating and uric acid metabolism in
apes and humans?

Answer 41

Adaptation fruit eating in these species led to the loss of the uricase enzyme, leading to risk of disease (gout) in humans consuming too much meat.

Question 42

Why was gout mostly a disease of the rich until very recently?

Answer 42

Only the rich could afford a lot of meat in their die

Question 43

What evolutionary process is the loss of sucrase/isomaltase enzyme in Inuit populations an example of?

Answer 43

“Use it or lose it”

Question 44

What could explain why the Hadza, who are foragers and do not farm have higher numbers of gene copies of salivary amylase than Biaka pygmies?

Answer 44

Unlike the Biaka, the Hadza eat a lot of starchy wild tubers.

Question 45

How come dogs can digest starch in human leftovers, but wolves cannot?

Answer 45

Domestic dogs evolved a high number of amylase gene copy numbers in their pancreas