Moscow University Anthropology Bulletin

Variability as a concept and as the main content of the physiological (ecological) anthropology. Part II

Goodkova L.K.

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Anuchin Research Institute and Museum of Anthropology, Mokhovaya st., 11, Moscow, 125009, Russia

Goodkova Lyudmila K., Ph.D., D.Sc., e-mail: lkgoodkova@bk.ru

Abstract

The main purpose of the article is concretize the concept of adaptive variability at point of view of physiological anthropology. Introduction. Adaptive variability is the biological variability resulting from various environmental causes: climatic, geographical and socio-cultural. The adaptive modification changes caused by different environmental deviations are expressed, first of all, as increase in the variability of physiological variables within a reaction norm. Materials and methods. In studying of adaptive variability the most valuable information comes from comparison of ecologically contrasting populations. The physiological status of the populations from the arid zone, the arctic zone and a medium altitude was examined. The climatic conditions of the arctic and arid zones are extreme environments. The levels of physiological blood characters – hemoglobin, serum proteins (total protein, albumen, a1-, a2-, b-, g-globulins), serum cholesterol – were determined by standard spectrophotometer methods. Results and discussion. Under the influence of extreme factors the levels of physiological characters of a person may change differently and the degree of the reactions expression is very variable between different persons. The integrative influence of the environmental complex of factors on the population depends on the characters of every person and the physiological differences between them. The increase of intergroup variability and the extension of the variability curves of physiological characters of Turkmen and Kazakhs, investigated in the hot period, is the reaction of a population to unfavorable changes of the environment. The populations of the arctic zone as well react to the extremity of the environment by the increase of intergroup variability of physiological characters. Comparison of the curves of distribution of characters in Coast Chukchi and Eskimos and a number of biological, medical, demographic, historical, etc. facts indicate a lowering of the Eskimos` adaptivness to the environment. We conclude that the analysis of diagnostic possibilities of the coefficient of variation has a crucial role in assessing of the fitness of populations in time and space. Conclusion. Because the environmental deviations primarily affect individual variability of ecosensitive characteristics, analysis of intergroup variability of physiological variables is crucial to understanding the adaptive capacity of the contemporary human populations.

Keywords

physiological (ecological) anthropology, human population physiology, variability, fitness (adaptation), environmental deviations, variation coefficient

Цит.: Goodkova L.K. Variability as a concept and as the main content of the physiological (ecological) anthropology. Part II // Moscow University Anthropology Bulletin (Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta. Seria XXIII. Antropologia), 2014; 4/2014; с. 4-17

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