Being Human in Cities
Phenotypic Bias from Urban Niche Construction
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2224871 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Greg Downey (0009-0001-5877-4717) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue | S13 |
| Pages | S52-S64 |
| Publication date | 2016-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Current Anthropology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0011-3204 • E-ISSN: 1537-5382 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/685710 |
| OpenAlex | W2343370756 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 17 |
| References cited | 127 |
Cities are sites of intense investment in niche construction, substantially altering ecological dynamics. Although novel in evolutionary terms, cities have distinctive epidemiological and demographic effects on human mortality and phenotype. Cities, however, do not affect all of their inhabitants identically, especially with a trend toward greater inequity with increased urbanization; the urban landscape offers a set of stratified behavioral niches to inhabitants. An examination of meninos de rua (street children) in Brazil highlights the opportunities available in urban landscapes and the demands placed on residents: a radically simplified foraging landscape, availability of energy-dense food resources, decreased activity levels, and challenges to mental health. Considering urbanization as niche construction highlights the embodied and psychological consequences of urban life not just on individuals but also over generations as urbanization creates phenotypic and developmental bias. The niche construction perspective blurs the divide between biological and cultural approaches to human variation and draws attention to the biological consequences of the built environment and socioeconomic structures underpinning urban life. Using street children in Brazil as a case study, this paper outlines the theoretical implications of urban adaptation as an example of niche construction dynamics leading to rapid changes in diet, morphology, and mental health
Biology · Ecological niche · Economic geography · Foraging · Geography · Habitat · Mental health · Niche · Niche construction · Population · Sociocultural evolution · Socioeconomic status · Sociology · Urbanization · Child Nutrition and Water Access · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Demography · Ecology · Obesity, Physical Activity, Diet · Psychology
Biocultural determinants of overweight and obesity in the context of nutrition transition in Senegal
Nutrition Transition and Biocultural Determinants of Obesity among Cameroonian Migrants in Urban Cameroon and France
A systematic review of foraging as lifestyle, livelihood, and landscape management strategy
Towards a Model of Urban Evolution—Part I
Natural Resource Access Rights and Wrongs
Urban rewilding for sustainability and food security
Niching in cities under pressure. Tracing the reconfiguration of community psychiatric care and the housing market in Berlin
Archaeo-Ornithology
Biocultural Aspects of Mental Distress
Large Body Size as a Socially Valued Factor Determining Excess Weight and Obesity in the Context of the Nutritional Transition in Senegal
Towards Neuroecosociality
Reintegrating Anthropology
Reintegrating Anthropology
The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, Ethnography, and the Human Niche
Evolutionary Cultural Anthropology
Imagination from the Outside and from the Inside
The Devoted Actor
At Home in the Street
State of World Population 2007
Developmental Plasticity and Evolution
Shelter Blues
City living and urban upbringing affect neural social stress processing in humans
The Epidemiologic Transition
Human niche construction in interdisciplinary focus
Gracility of the modern Homo sapiens skeleton is the result of decreased biomechanical loading
The current status of urban‐rural differences in psychiatric disorders
Juvenile foraging among the Hadza
Urbanisation and incidence of psychosis and depression
Relationship between Urban Sprawl and Physical Activity, Obesity, and Morbidity
The Effects of Urban Patterns on Ecosystem Function
Overweight and Underweight Coexist within Households in Brazil, China and Russia
Nutrition transition and double burden of undernutrition and excess of weight in Brazil
The Challenge of Slums
Genetic Signatures of Strong Recent Positive Selection at the Lactase Gene
The nutrition transition
Independent Effects of Income and Education on the Risk of Obesity in the Brazilian Adult Population
Urbanization, Biodiversity, and Conservation
Evolution of lactase persistence
Cultural Niche Construction
Integrating Humans into Ecology
Environmental Contributions to the Obesity Epidemic
Health and Urban Living
Global nutrition dynamics
The Impact of Transnational “Big Food” Companies on the South
Violence and injuries in Brazil
Obesity, physical activity, and the urban environment
Hunter-Gatherer Inter-Band Interaction Rates
Rethinking the “Diseases of Affluence” Paradigm
The emerging epidemic of obesity in developing countries
Mental Disorders in Megacities
Recent acceleration of human adaptive evolution
How culture shaped the human genome
Appendicular robusticity and the paleobiology of modern human emergence
Diet and the evolution of human amylase gene copy number variation
An “ecological” approach to the obesity pandemic
Global nutrition transition and the pandemic of obesity in developing countries
The Epidemiologic Transition
Niche construction and the behavioral context of plant and animal domestication
Obesity as malnutrition
The Evolved Apprentice
Is there an influence of modern life style on skeletal build
Law and disorder in the postcolony
Hunter-gatherers and human evolution
A theory of human life history evolution
The social brain hypothesis
Part II. What is unique about the experience in lower-and middle-income less-industrialised countries compared with the very-highincome industrialised countries
Obesogenic urban form
Kids Out of Place
Street Children in the Developing World
Ill-health and poverty
Children's Autonomous Food Acquisition in Mexican Shantytowns
The Vulnerability and Resilience of Street Children
The Millennium Development Goals and urban poverty reduction
Urbanization, Lifestyle Changes and the Nutrition Transition
Postcranial robusticity in Homo . I
Urban Food Systems and the Poor in Developing Countries
The molecular signature of selection underlying human adaptations
Age-dependency in hunting ability among the Ache of Eastern Paraguay
How long does it take to become a proficient hunter? Implications for the evolution of extended development and long life span
Phylogenetic Analysis of the Evolution of Lactose Digestion in Adults
Constraints of knowing or constraints of growing
Obesity, poverty, and food insecurity in Brazilian males and females
Growth status of homeless Nepali boys
Biocultural orchestration of developmental plasticity across levels
A stroll through the worlds of animals and men
Beyond diathesis stress
Life History Traits in Humans
The Evolution of Culture
Co-Evolution
Street Children, Human Rights, and Public Health
Resolving the Anti-Antievolutionism Dilemma
"The "Childhood Obesity Epidemic
Integrative Anthropology and the Human Niche
Bringing Culture into Human Biology and Biology Back into Anthropology
Genes, Culture, and Agriculture
| Unique citing works | 17 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,7 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2026 (11) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 17 |