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X Demographics
Mendeley readers
Attention Score in Context
| Title |
Impact of Carnivory on Human Development and Evolution Revealed by a New Unifying Model of Weaning in Mammals
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
PLOS ONE, April 2012
|
| DOI | 10.1371/journal.pone.0032452 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Elia Psouni, Axel Janke, Martin Garwicz |
| Abstract |
Our large brain, long life span and high fertility are key elements of human evolutionary success and are often thought to have evolved in interplay with tool use, carnivory and hunting. However, the specific impact of carnivory on human evolution, life history and development remains controversial. Here we show in quantitative terms that dietary profile is a key factor influencing time to weaning across a wide taxonomic range of mammals, including humans. In a model encompassing a total of 67 species and genera from 12 mammalian orders, adult brain mass and two dichotomous variables reflecting species differences regarding limb biomechanics and dietary profile, accounted for 75.5%, 10.3% and 3.4% of variance in time to weaning, respectively, together capturing 89.2% of total variance. Crucially, carnivory predicted the time point of early weaning in humans with remarkable precision, yielding a prediction error of less than 5% with a sample of forty-six human natural fertility societies as reference. Hence, carnivory appears to provide both a necessary and sufficient explanation as to why humans wean so much earlier than the great apes. While early weaning is regarded as essentially differentiating the genus Homo from the great apes, its timing seems to be determined by the same limited set of factors in humans as in mammals in general, despite some 90 million years of evolution. Our analysis emphasizes the high degree of similarity of relative time scales in mammalian development and life history across 67 genera from 12 mammalian orders and shows that the impact of carnivory on time to weaning in humans is quantifiable, and critical. Since early weaning yields shorter interbirth intervals and higher rates of reproduction, with profound effects on population dynamics, our findings highlight the emergence of carnivory as a process fundamentally determining human evolution. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 166 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 37 | 22% |
| United Kingdom | 9 | 5% |
| Spain | 5 | 3% |
| Canada | 4 | 2% |
| Brazil | 4 | 2% |
| India | 4 | 2% |
| Mexico | 3 | 2% |
| Belgium | 3 | 2% |
| France | 3 | 2% |
| Other | 21 | 13% |
| Unknown | 73 | 44% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 120 | 72% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 22 | 13% |
| Scientists | 18 | 11% |
| Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 6 | 4% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 157 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Canada | 2 | 1% |
| United States | 2 | 1% |
| United Kingdom | 1 | <1% |
| Denmark | 1 | <1% |
| France | 1 | <1% |
| Unknown | 150 | 96% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 27 | 17% |
| Researcher | 27 | 17% |
| Student > Bachelor | 24 | 15% |
| Student > Master | 23 | 15% |
| Other | 11 | 7% |
| Other | 29 | 18% |
| Unknown | 16 | 10% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 52 | 33% |
| Arts and Humanities | 14 | 9% |
| Medicine and Dentistry | 12 | 8% |
| Environmental Science | 12 | 8% |
| Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 11 | 7% |
| Other | 35 | 22% |
| Unknown | 21 | 13% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 196. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 11 January 2024.
All research outputs
#207,806
of 25,914,360 outputs
Outputs from PLOS ONE
#3,068
of 226,134 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#823
of 175,215 outputs
Outputs of similar age from PLOS ONE
#43
of 3,740 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,914,360 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 226,134 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 15.9. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 175,215 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 3,740 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.