近日，英国剑桥大学教授Eleanor M. L. Scerri及其研究团队揭示了人类生态位的主要扩张发生在人类走出非洲之前。2025年6月18日出版的《自然》发表了这项成果。

在这里，该课题组人员展示了人类生态位宽度在非洲的显著扩张，这是在后来的分散之前。课题组研究人员建立了一个泛非数据库，其中包含了年代确定的考古遗址和主题物种分布模型（SDMs），以量化过去12万年来生物气候生态位的变化。课题组发现人类生态位从70这种扩张是由人类增加他们的主题所驱动的，从森林到干旱的沙漠。他们，人类在50年后离开了非洲在人类中，卡人在遇到气候挑战的栖息地时具有独特的生态灵活性，这为他们的适应成功提供了关键机制。

据介绍，所有当代欧亚人的祖先都可以追溯到一个分散在非洲以外的小群体，大约有5万人年前（ka）。相比之下，化石证据证明了更早的非洲迁徙。只有在早期的迁徙对后来的大迁徙浪潮几乎没有遗传贡献的情况下，这些证据才能得到协调。因此，一个关键的问题是，是什么因素促成了后来成功的迁徙，并导致了非洲以外的长期定居。

附：英文原文

Title: Major expansion in the human niche preceded out of Africa dispersal

Author: Hallett, Emily Y., Leonardi, Michela, Cerasoni, Jacopo Niccol, Will, Manuel, Beyer, Robert, Krapp, Mario, Kandel, Andrew W., Manica, Andrea, Scerri, Eleanor M. L.

Issue&Volume: 2025-06-18

Abstract: All contemporary Eurasians trace most of their ancestry to a small population that dispersed out of Africa about 50,000years ago (ka)1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. By contrast, fossil evidence attests to earlier migrations out of Africa10,11,12,13,14,15. These lines of evidence can only be reconciled if early dispersals made little to no genetic contribution to the later, major wave. A key question therefore concerns what factors facilitated the successful later dispersal that led to long-term settlement beyond Africa. Here we show that a notable expansion in human niche breadth within Africa precedes this later dispersal. We assembled a pan-African database of chronometrically dated archaeological sites and used species distribution models (SDMs) to quantify changes in the bioclimatic niche over the past 120,000years. We found that the human niche began to expand substantially from 70ka and that this expansion was driven by humans increasing their use of diverse habitat types, from forests to arid deserts. Thus, humans dispersing out of Africa after 50ka were equipped with a distinctive ecological flexibility among hominins as they encountered climatically challenging habitats, providing a key mechanism for their adaptive success.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09154-0

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09154-0