A preprint article in bioRxiv by a team based at Penn State examines the differences in y-chromosomes between extant great apes, including humans. Historically, There has been confusion surrounding y-chromosome content in apes given that human-gorilla y-chromosomes appear to be more similar than those of human-chimps. A broad scale analysis showed that this is indeed the case, but also highlighted much higher rates of both substitution and gene death in chimps. These together appear to be the factors resulting in chimps being more different from humans than gorillas, explaining the unexpected similarities given our understanding of ape phylogenetic relationships.
Interestingly, the authors go on to suggest higher rats of chimp sperm competition leading to their more different y-chromosomes. This would imply that both humans and gorillas have had comparatively low sperm competition throughout their evolutionary histories relative to chimps, giving a potential proxy for evolutionary behavior in all three lineages. This study shows that the y-chromosome in particular is highly dynamic.
Ryan McRae
Potluck 2/18/20
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2020/01/22/2020.01.21.913863.full.pdf
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