Fishing for iodine: what aquatic foraging by bonobos tells us about human evolution
Gottfried Hohmann cs 2019
BMC Zoology 4(1) doi 10.1186/s40850-019-0043-z open access https://bmczool.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40850-019-0043-z

Expansion of brain tissue & development of advanced cognitive skills are characteristic traits of human evolution.
Their emergence has been causally linked to nutrients that promote brain development, and iodine is considered a critical resource.
Rich sources of iodine exist in coastal areas, and evolutionary scenarios associate the progressive development of brain size & cognitive skills to such landscapes:
how could early hominins living in continental areas have met their iodine requirements?

We use information from hominoid primates as a proxy for the nutritional ecology of early hominins.
Bonobos are particularly interesting in this context: they are restricted to the central part of the Congo basin, an area considered to be iodine-deficient, based on human standards.

Methods:
Pooled samples of fruit, terrestrial & aquatic herbs were used to assess mineral content with an inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer.
Iodine content was measured with the catalytic technique of Sandell-Kolthoff & 2 separate inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry methods.

Results:
- Nutritional analyses revealed that the mineral content of aquatic herbs is higher than in other plant foods.
- 2 spp of aquatic herbs consumed by bonobos contain iodine concentrations that are almost equivalent to marine algae.

Conclusions:
These data challenge the general notion that the Congo basin is iodine-deficient:
its lowland forest offers natural sources of iodine in concentrations high enough to prevent iodine deficiency in hominoids & humans.

____

Thanks, Mario, yes, no mentioning of AAT.
Google "bonobo wading".

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tuesday, January 11, 2022 at 8:45:04 AM UTC-5, littor...@gmail.com wrote:

Fishing for iodine: what aquatic foraging by bonobos tells us about human evolution
Gottfried Hohmann cs 2019
BMC Zoology 4(1) doi 10.1186/s40850-019-0043-z open access https://bmczool.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40850-019-0043-z

Expansion of brain tissue & development of advanced cognitive skills are characteristic traits of human evolution.
Their emergence has been causally linked to nutrients that promote brain development, and iodine is considered a critical resource.
Rich sources of iodine exist in coastal areas, and evolutionary scenarios associate the progressive development of brain size & cognitive skills to such landscapes:
how could early hominins living in continental areas have met their iodine requirements?

We use information from hominoid primates as a proxy for the nutritional ecology of early hominins.
Bonobos are particularly interesting in this context: they are restricted to the central part of the Congo basin, an area considered to be iodine-deficient, based on human standards.

Methods:
Pooled samples of fruit, terrestrial & aquatic herbs were used to assess mineral content with an inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer.
Iodine content was measured with the catalytic technique of Sandell-Kolthoff & 2 separate inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry methods.

Results:
- Nutritional analyses revealed that the mineral content of aquatic herbs is higher than in other plant foods.
- 2 spp of aquatic herbs consumed by bonobos contain iodine concentrations that are almost equivalent to marine algae.

Conclusions:
These data challenge the general notion that the Congo basin is iodine-deficient:
its lowland forest offers natural sources of iodine in concentrations high enough to prevent iodine deficiency in hominoids & humans.

____

Thanks, Mario, yes, no mentioning of AAT.
Google "bonobo wading".

Congo lowland rainforests, and deserts where winds blow Iodine & selenium all over: " was clear that where desert dust contained significant levels of iodine -- like dust from the Atacama and Sechura deserts in Chile and Peru -- the iodine was quickly
transformed into a gaseous form" https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211222153149.htm

Central west Africans have the highest bone density of all Homo today.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)