NEW YORK – A team from France, Denmark, Gabon, and the US has narrowed in on signatures of selection, proposed polygenic adaptations, and other potentially adaptive features in African rainforest hunter-gatherer (RHG) populations from Central Africa.

In particular, the team flagged a selective sweep affecting the TRPS1 gene that appears to be shared across the rainforest hunter-gatherer populations profiled, perhaps explaining some characteristic physical adaptations in the tropical rainforest populations, traditionally known as "Pygmy" populations.