Tapeworms as a proxy for studying hominin meat eating and food cooking behaviors

Studies of our parasites and how they are affected by and have adapted to our biology, behavior, and anthropogenic environments can inform our understanding of human evolutionary history by proxy. For example, tapeworms have a complex lifecycle requiring both definitive (carnivore) and intermediate (typically herbivore) hosts. Thus, phylogenetic and evolutionary biology studies of tapeworms can also provide valuable proxy insights into our understandings of the history of meat eating and associated cultural behaviors of definitive host species. This talk will feature results from integrative functional (experimental heating of tapeworm cysts and RNA sequencing) and evolutionary genomics analyses to help test hypotheses concerning hominin meat eating behavior and potential tapeworm adaptation to withstand heat stresses associated with hominin food cooking behavior.

About the Speaker

George (PJ) Perry is a Professor in the Departments of Anthropology and Biology and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences at Penn State University. He is also a Senior Editor for the interdisciplinary journal eLife. His laboratory studies human evolution medicine and how human behavior has impacted the evolutionary biology of non-human species with approaches from anthropology, evolutionary biology, ecology, and population, comparative, functional, and paleo (ancient DNA) genomics. He also is focused on helping academia learn how to better facilitate impact-driven science and scientists. Website: http://www.anthgenomicslab.com