The Genomic Impact of Human Migrations

Dear Colleagues,

Anatomically modern humans first appeared in the East African fossil record around 200,000 years ago, and colonized the rest of the world with an unprecedented fast pace, in less than 100,000 years.  Their journey was accompanied by various levels of interaction with different species and habitats: a substantial replacement of pre-existing archaic humans, a strong selection drive behind extensive domestication processes (of both animals and plants), a range of direct and indirect modifications to the landscape which created new niches for commensal and pathogenic species, and finally new challenges for the adaptation to different, and sometimes extreme, environments. After the main colonization dispersal, human genomic variation has been largely shaped by events of localized gene flow of different intensities. These movements have been favoured by geological changes, as the post-glacial migration from refugia, or by processes of cultural transition, as the spread of agriculture from the Levant and the Late Neolithic/Bronze Age migration from the Pontic-Caspian steppe.

This Special Issue will collect reviews and original contributions about migration dynamics and evolutionary trajectories of our species, and of the species that came into contact with us during our migration journey.  This includes studies of human-pathogens interaction and coevolution, human-driven selection, inference of past demographic dynamics and genomic adaptation to new environments. 

Prof. Silvia Ghirotto
Dr. Chiara Barbieri
Guest Editors

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