IT 技术和网络使我们越来越感觉这个世界真小,就像是一个地球村;而人类基因组计划和基因研究的成果却越来越多地证明,无论是什么种族,在很早很早以前,原本就是兄弟或一家人。科学越发达,就越能揭示地球上的所有人本来就情同手足。可事...IT 技术和网络使我们越来越感觉这个世界真小,就像是一个地球村;而人类基因组计划和基因研究的成果却越来越多地证明,无论是什么种族,在很早很早以前,原本就是兄弟或一家人。科学越发达,就越能揭示地球上的所有人本来就情同手足。可事实上生物学上的兄弟关系在社会关系中却不可能情同手足,而且还恰恰相反,往往成为不共戴天的敌人。兄弟差异早期基因研究结果提出过一个假说,在约20万年前人类有过一个共同的祖先——线粒体夏娃,她居住在非洲,后来经过千万年的进化,她的子孙分别进化为黄种人、展开更多
Primates have been found to differ widely in their taste perception and studies suggest that a coevolution between plant species bearing a certain taste substance and primate species feeding on these plants may contri...Primates have been found to differ widely in their taste perception and studies suggest that a coevolution between plant species bearing a certain taste substance and primate species feeding on these plants may contribute to such between-species differences. Considering that only platyrrhine primates, but not catarrhine or prosimian primates, share an evolutionary history with the neotrop- ical plant Stevia rebaudiana, we assessed whether members of these three primate taxa differ in their ability to perceive and/or in their sensitivity to its two quantitatively predominant sweet- tasting substances. We found that not only neotropical black-handed spider monkeys, but also paleotropical black-and-white ruffed lemurs and Western chimpanzees are clearly able to perceive stevioside and rebaudioside A. Using a two-bottle preference test of short duration, we found that Ateles geoffroyi preferred concentrations as low as 0.05 mM stevioside and 0.01 mM rebaudioside A over tap water. Taste preference thresholds of Pan troglodytes were similar to those of the spider monkeys, with 0.05 mM for stevioside and 0.03 mM for rebaudioside A, whereas Varecia variegata was slightly less sensitive with a threshold value of 0.1 mM for both substances. Thus, all three primate species are, similar to human subjects, clearly more sensitive to both steviol glycosides compared to sucrose. Only the spider monkeys displayed concentration-response curves with both stevioside and rebaudioside A which can best be described as an inverted U-shaped function sug- gesting that Ateles geoffroyi, similar to human subjects, may perceive a bitter side taste at higher concentrations of these substances. Taken together, the results of the present study do not support the notion that a co-evolution between plant and primate species may account for between-species differences in taste perception of steviol glycosides.展开更多
文摘Primates have been found to differ widely in their taste perception and studies suggest that a coevolution between plant species bearing a certain taste substance and primate species feeding on these plants may contribute to such between-species differences. Considering that only platyrrhine primates, but not catarrhine or prosimian primates, share an evolutionary history with the neotrop- ical plant Stevia rebaudiana, we assessed whether members of these three primate taxa differ in their ability to perceive and/or in their sensitivity to its two quantitatively predominant sweet- tasting substances. We found that not only neotropical black-handed spider monkeys, but also paleotropical black-and-white ruffed lemurs and Western chimpanzees are clearly able to perceive stevioside and rebaudioside A. Using a two-bottle preference test of short duration, we found that Ateles geoffroyi preferred concentrations as low as 0.05 mM stevioside and 0.01 mM rebaudioside A over tap water. Taste preference thresholds of Pan troglodytes were similar to those of the spider monkeys, with 0.05 mM for stevioside and 0.03 mM for rebaudioside A, whereas Varecia variegata was slightly less sensitive with a threshold value of 0.1 mM for both substances. Thus, all three primate species are, similar to human subjects, clearly more sensitive to both steviol glycosides compared to sucrose. Only the spider monkeys displayed concentration-response curves with both stevioside and rebaudioside A which can best be described as an inverted U-shaped function sug- gesting that Ateles geoffroyi, similar to human subjects, may perceive a bitter side taste at higher concentrations of these substances. Taken together, the results of the present study do not support the notion that a co-evolution between plant and primate species may account for between-species differences in taste perception of steviol glycosides.
