Lec. 5 Broad Vs. Narrow Food Niches Flashcards
Name two groups of monkey species that are famous for their flexible dietary
Niche.
Baboons of Africa and Macaques of Asia.
Name a monkey species that specializes on eating grasses.
Gelada baboons of Highland Ethiopia.
What adaptation is used by red colobus monkeys to digest their leaf-rich diet?
Foregut fermentation.
What are the four land animals most commonly eaten by humans?
Chicken, duck, swine, and cattle
What can we conclude from lower fisheries catches despite higher fishing effort?
Fisheries are not sustainable
What is the biggest fisheries export from California?
Sea urchins
Which are the four most important food crops for humans globally?
Corn, wheat, rice and soybean
Name four character that evolved in ruminants:
- Dentition,
- Multi-chambered stomach (microbial pre-digestion),
- Head gear (defense against predators),
- Speed (locomotion/escape).
What material is traditionally used to make bow string by the Hadza of Tanzania?
Sinew (dried tendon) from large animals that is twisted into string with three strands.
How do Hadza men get to bee hives located high in baobab trees?
They use freshly carved hard wood pegs from other trees and pound them safely into the soft baobab trunk using an axe handle as a hammer
What is the nutritional value of bees’wax obtained from honey comb?
None, humans cannot digest bee’s wax (but the honey guide birds can!)
Name three striking feature of the adult bodies of Hadza people.
Low BMI, low fat, and bodyweight remains almost constant!!
Name a key difference between the energy content of foraging people and people from the industrial world.
Food from foragers has lower energy density.
What aspects other than nutrition and physical activity could influence Hunter gatherer health?
Social life, sleep habits, leisure time
What is the origin and meaning of the term atherosclerosis?
gruel- like deposition inside arteries and hardening of the vessel
Why would traditional diets at higher latitudes (away from the tropics) include
more animal foods?
many temperate ecosystem lack fruit and soil that can be farmed.
What is the origin of the word cannibal?
The Caribbean.
What is the evidenced for ancient exocannibalism (routine cannibalism for food)
in Atapuerca Spain?
Butchery like cut mark on bones from ancient humans
What is the reason why specializing on cannibalism is likely not sustainable?
Ancestral humans were likely not so nutritious, low percentage of muscles and little caloric value.
What is kuru?
A disease cause by an infectious misfolded glycoprotein in the brain leading to spongiform encephalopathy (foam-shaped disease of the brain
What is the evidence that cannibalism among humans is not always a colonialist
myth?
There are countless well-documented occurrences of cannibalism across several continents and thousands of years
