Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 282, Issue 1806, Pages -Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2015.0211
Keywords
height; natural selection; The Netherlands; fertility; reproductive success; LifeLines
Categories
Funding
- Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research NWO [175.010.2007.006]
- Economic Structure Enhancing Fund (FES) of the Dutch government
- Ministry of Economic Affairs
- Ministry of Education, Culture and Science
- Ministry for Health, Welfare and Sports
- Northern Netherlands Collaboration of Provinces (SNN)
- Province of Groningen
- University Medical Center Groningen
- University of Groningen
- Dutch Kidney Foundation
- Dutch Diabetes Research Foundation
- NWO Rubicon fellowship
- NSERC Discovery Grant
- Canada Research Chair Programs
- NWO (VIDI) [452-10-012]
- European Research Council via an ERC Consolidator Grant SOCIOGENOME [615603]
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The Dutch are the tallest people on earth. Over the last 200 years, they have grown 20 cm in height: a rapid rate of increase that points to environmental causes. This secular trend in height is echoed across all Western populations, but came to an end, or at least levelled off, much earlier than in The Netherlands. One possibility, then, is that natural selection acted congruently with these environmentally induced changes to further promote tall stature among the people of the lowlands. Using data from the LifeLines study, which follows a large sample of the population of the north of The Netherlands (n = 94 516), we examined how height was related to measures of reproductive success (as a proxy for fitness). Across three decades (1935-1967), height was consistently related to reproductive output (number of children born and number of surviving children), favouring taller men and average height women. This was despite a later age at first birth for taller individuals. Furthermore, even in this low-mortality population, taller women experienced higher child survival, which contributed positively to their increased reproductive success. Thus, natural selection in addition to good environmental conditions may help explain why the Dutch are so tall.
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