Lec. 5 Broad Vs. Narrow Food Niches

Question 1

Name two groups of monkey species that are famous for their flexible dietary
Niche.

Answer 1

Baboons of Africa and Macaques of Asia.

MACAQUES OF ASIA

Question 2

Name a monkey species that specializes on eating grasses.

Answer 2

Gelada baboons of Highland Ethiopia.

Question 3

What adaptation is used by red colobus monkeys to digest their leaf-rich diet?

Answer 3

Foregut fermentation.

Question 4

What are the four land animals most commonly eaten by humans?

Answer 4

Chicken, duck, swine, and cattle

Question 5

What can we conclude from lower fisheries catches despite higher fishing effort?

Answer 5

Fisheries are not sustainable

Question 6

What is the biggest fisheries export from California?

Answer 6

Sea urchins

Question 7

Which are the four most important food crops for humans globally?

Answer 7

Corn, wheat, rice and soybean

Question 8

Name four character that evolved in ruminants:

Answer 8

• Dentition,
• Multi-chambered stomach (microbial pre-digestion),
• Head gear (defense against predators),
• Speed (locomotion/escape).

Question 9

What material is traditionally used to make bow string by the Hadza of Tanzania?

Answer 9

Sinew (dried tendon) from large animals that is twisted into string with three strands.

Question 10

How do Hadza men get to bee hives located high in baobab trees?

Answer 10

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

Question 11

What is the nutritional value of bees’wax obtained from honey comb?

Answer 11

None, humans cannot digest bee’s wax (but the honey guide birds can!)

Question 12

Name three striking feature of the adult bodies of Hadza people.

Answer 12

Low BMI, low fat, and bodyweight remains almost constant!!

Question 13

Name a key difference between the energy content of foraging people and people from the industrial world.

Answer 13

Food from foragers has lower energy density.

Question 14

What aspects other than nutrition and physical activity could influence Hunter gatherer health?

Answer 14

Social life, sleep habits, leisure time

Question 15

What is the origin and meaning of the term atherosclerosis?

Answer 15

gruel- like deposition inside arteries and hardening of the vessel

Question 16

Why would traditional diets at higher latitudes (away from the tropics) include
more animal foods?

Answer 16

many temperate ecosystem lack fruit and soil that can be farmed.

Question 17

What is the origin of the word cannibal?

Answer 17

The Caribbean.

Question 18

What is the evidenced for ancient exocannibalism (routine cannibalism for food)
in Atapuerca Spain?

Answer 18

Butchery like cut mark on bones from ancient humans

Question 19

What is the reason why specializing on cannibalism is likely not sustainable?

Answer 19

Ancestral humans were likely not so nutritious, low percentage of muscles and little caloric value.

Question 20

What is kuru?

Answer 20

A disease cause by an infectious misfolded glycoprotein in the brain leading to spongiform encephalopathy (foam-shaped disease of the brain

Question 21

What is the evidence that cannibalism among humans is not always a colonialist
myth?

Answer 21

There are countless well-documented occurrences of cannibalism across several continents and thousands of years