European hair and eye color. A case of frequency-dependent sexual selection?

[Captain Blackbeard]

<nobr></nobr><nobr>1. Introduction

</nobr> <nobr>Human hair and eye color is unusually diverse in a geographic area centered on the East</nobr>
<nobr>Baltic and covering northern and eastern Europe (Figs. 1 and 2 (http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:ruZR9CQWBRUJ:www.femininebeauty.inf o/peter.frost.pdf+green+eye+frequency+in+europe&cd=29&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk#2)) (http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:ruZR9CQWBRUJ:www.femininebeauty.inf o/peter.frost.pdf+green+eye+frequency+in+europe&cd=29&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk#2). Within this area, eyes are not</nobr>
<nobr>only brown but also blue, gray, hazel, or green, while hair is not only black but also brown,</nobr>
<nobr>flaxen, golden, or red (Beals & Hoijer, 1965 (http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:ruZR9CQWBRUJ:www.femininebeauty.inf o/peter.frost.pdf+green+eye+frequency+in+europe&cd=29&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk#15), pp. 212–214). As one moves outward from this</nobr>
<nobr>area, color diversity declines markedly with eyes becoming uniformly brown and hair</nobr>
<nobr>uniformly black.</nobr>
<nobr>Is this diversity due to chance? In particular, could it reflect founder effects during the</nobr>
<nobr>repeopling of glaciated Europe 15,000 to 10,000 years ago? When a founder group breaks off</nobr>
<nobr>from its parent population, such bsamplingQ may indeed increase the frequency of a variant</nobr>
<nobr>hair- or eye-color allele. It is less probable that two alleles of the same gene would become </nobr><nobr>more frequent,
and this probability would decline exponentially with each additional allele.</nobr><nobr>Yet the hair-color gene,
MC1R, has at least seven phenotypically distinct alleles that exist</nobr> <nobr>only in Europe (Box et al., 1997; Harding et al., 2000; Rana et al., 1999 (http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:ruZR9CQWBRUJ:www.femininebeauty.inf o/peter.frost.pdf+green+eye+frequency+in+europe&cd=29&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk#15)). Furthermore, eye-</nobr>
<nobr>color diversity results from another set of alleles at a locus that is at best weakly linked to hair</nobr>
<nobr>color (Eiberg & Mohr, 1987 (http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:ruZR9CQWBRUJ:www.femininebeauty.inf o/peter.frost.pdf+green+eye+frequency+in+europe&cd=29&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk#16)).</nobr>
<nobr>Is this diversity due to relaxation of selection and a resulting accumulation of variant</nobr>
<nobr>alleles? Harding et al. (2000) (http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:ruZR9CQWBRUJ:www.femininebeauty.inf o/peter.frost.pdf+green+eye+frequency+in+europe&cd=29&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk#16)have investigated this evolutionary scenario and found that the</nobr>
<nobr>time to the most recent common ancestral hair color would be about a million years, with the</nobr>
<nobr>redhead alleles alone being approximately 80,000 years old. Templeton (2002) (http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:ruZR9CQWBRUJ:www.femininebeauty.inf o/peter.frost.pdf+green+eye+frequency+in+europe&cd=29&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk#19)has come to a</nobr>
<nobr>similar conclusion: If the cause were relaxation of selection, the current level of hair-color</nobr>
<nobr>diversity would have taken 850,000 years to develop. Yet modern humans have been in</nobr>
<nobr>Europe for approximately 35,000 years</nobr><nobr></nobr><nobr></nobr>
<nobr></nobr>
Cont. at source (http://www.femininebeauty.info/peter.frost.pdf)


And the quote of the day:

<nobr></nobr><nobr>Finally, Ellis (1928, pp. 182–183) (http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:ruZR9CQWBRUJ:www.femininebeauty.inf o/peter.frost.pdf+green+eye+frequency+in+europe&cd=29&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk#16)noted less preference for blonde women in England than in</nobr> <nobr>France, which he ascribed to the higher prevalence of blondness among the English.</nobr><nobr></nobr><nobr></nobr>

:D

[Luern]

Finally, Ellis (1928, pp. 182–183) noted less preference for blonde women in England than in France, which he ascribed to the higher prevalence of blondness among the English.

More preference for blondes in France? I just wonder how he came to this conclusion.

Anyway, surely things must have changed since then, with all the chocolate men hanging around in England and chasing blondies.

[Brännvin]

The study is old in some way, blondism has nothing to do with sexual selection, more like a human adaptation.

[Jarl]

The study is old in some way, blondism has nothing to do with sexual selection, more like a human adaptation.

Or maybe more like neutral genetic drift? ;)

[Útrám]

Wasn't it vitamin-d deficiency?

[Inese]

The study is old in some way, blondism has nothing to do with sexual selection, more like a human adaptation.
It is both --- it has to do with adoption to northern lands , Vitamin D production and sexual preference because blonde people are special and brown or black hairs are common. That it is was i was teached, i can read in texts and see in my life!! :wink

[Brännvin]

It is both --- it has to do with adoption to northern lands , Vitamin D production and sexual preference because blonde people are special and brown or black hairs are common.

However many of these speculations are based on modern standards built.

Of course, this theory of a reproductive preference for blonde cannot be proven; modern biological science can only provide an approximate date for the first appearance of the proliferation of the recessive, blonde mutation.

The blonde (proper blond) hair mutation is about 11,000 years old (Baltic area).

[Angantyr]

The study is old in some way, blondism has nothing to do with sexual selection, more like a human adaptation.

Anecdotally, I have chosen women based on hair colour...although I will not say what hair colour that may be. :embarrassed

[lei.talk]

...although I will not say what hair colour that may be. :embarrassedthere is no need (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?p=69234#post69234). :swl

[Tabiti]

There are lots of factors to determinate who is more sexual preferred than others and hair and eyes color aren't the most important. Most is called "trend" and "stereotype".

[Tony]

I must confess I find sexier the brunette because the contrast between a pale skin and dark hair stands the whiteness of skin out more.
As regard the evolution issue I've to add 2 more theories , the Nordic Alien one and the Christian Identity one.

Accordin to the first:

Nordic aliens (Aryan aliens) is a name given to what are said to be a group of humanoid extraterrestrials. They are so named because they are said to resemble Nordic, Scandinavian, or Aryan racial images.
...
they are sometimes known as Pleiadeans or Errans, and are said to be from the Pleiades star cluster in the constellation of Taurus
...
Nordic aliens are said to be extremely human-like in appearance, with pale white skin, colorless lips, and hair that is either light blond or white.[5] Some accounts describe them as having "remarkable"[6] (sometimes pale[5]) blue eyes,[6] although they have also been described as having pink,[6] red, yellow, or green eyes
...
Most accounts say that they are tall; either 6–8 ft tall or 18–24[citation needed] ft tall, statuesque, and attractive.[citation needed] It is more common for them to be reported as being male than female.
...


The Christian Identity speculation has it that whiteness and the general lightness of features such as hair and eyes were first popped up with the Adam , the first white man ever and that mutation has spread all over the world since then.
Read the articles by Henry Millard on NewNation about ithttp://www.newnation.org/Millard/index.html.

[Inese]

Anecdotally, I have chosen women based on hair colour...although I will not say what hair colour that may be. :embarrassed
I know it i know it!! :D ^_^