Special Issue

Luca Cavalli-Sforza’s legacy, 100 years after his birth

Manuscript Submission Deadline: March 31, 2021 Submit Now

Guest Editors

Guido Barbujani

Professor of Genetics, Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Ferrara University, via L. Borsari 46, I-44100 Ferrara, Italy
E-Mail | Website
Lounès Chikhi

CNRS, Laboratoire Évolution & Diversité Biologique (EDB UMR 5174), IRD, CNRS, UPS, Université de Toulouse Midi‐Pyrénées, Toulouse, France;
Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Population and Conservation Genetics group, Oeiras, 2870-156 Oeiras, Portugal
E-Mail | Website

Introduction

Luca Cavalli-Sforza was born in Genoa, 25 January 1922, and passed away on 31 August 2018. His contribution to human population and evolutionary genetics just cannot be overestimated. He was the first to realize that the DNA of our cells is a message from the past, transmitted to us by thousands of ancestors, and that by deciphering it we can have access to aspects of our history and prehistory that would be, otherwise, forever unknown. This way, he turned a highly mathematical, specialistic discipline previously focused mainly on the study of recessive diseases into the common scientific ground in which experts of diverse disciplines, such as archaeology and linguistics, palaeontology and demography, would meet and reach synthesis of unprecedented breadth.

Of course, this powerful research programme was not developed by one person alone. Many people contributed their ideas, methods and hard work, and still keep doing it. To put Luca Cavalli-Sforza’s contributions to genetics in the context of ongoing research, Human Population Genetics and Genomics will publish a special issue, with both invited and submitted papers. Each paper will start from one seminal article by Luca Cavalli-Sforza, and review the current state of the art. In particular, these thematic areas, representative of Cavalli-Sforza’s main fields of interest (but not necessarily only them) will be covered:

1. Bacterial genetics

2. Population structure and genetic drift

3. Human adaptation

4. Methods for evolutionary inference

5. Biological vs cultural evolution

6. DNA-based reconstruction of demographic history

7. Human genome diversity.

Keywords

Human genetics; population genetics; human evolution; genetic drift; genome diversity; genetics and culture; population history

Manuscript Submission Information

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor been under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings). All manuscripts will be thoroughly refereed through a single-blinded peer-review process. A guide for manuscript submission is available at Submission Instrctions.

Prospective Papers

Title: Human adaptation

Author: Keolu Fox

Affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA

Based on "The role of geography in human adaptation". Coop G, Pickrell JK, Novembre J, Kudaravalli S, Li J, Absher D, Myers RM, Cavalli-Sforza LL, Feldman MW, Pritchard JK. PLoS Genet. 2009 Jun;5(6):e1000500. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1000500.

Title: A Linguist’s point of view

Author: Giuseppe Longobardi

Affiliation: Department of Language and Linguistic Science, University of York, UK

Title: Genetic history of populations

Author: Jaume Bertranpetit

Affiliation: Institute of Evolutionary Biology (CSIC-UPF), Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Doctor Aiguader 88 (PRBB), 08003, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

Based on "A genetic reconstruction of the history of the population of the Iberian Peninsula". Bertranpetit J, Cavalli-Sforza LL. Ann Hum Genet. 1991 Jan;55(1):51-67. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-1809.1991.tb00398.x.

Title: Migration to Asia

Author: Melinda A. Yang

Affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Richmond, Richmond, USA

Based on "Distribution of haplotypes from a chromosome 21 region distinguishes multiple prehistoric human migrations." Jin L, Underhill PA, Doctor V, Davis RW, Shen P, Cavalli-Sforza LL, Oefner PJ. (1999) Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 96(7):3796-800. doi: 10.1073/pnas.96.7.3796.

Title: An Anthropologist’s point of view

Author: Jonathan Marks

Affiliation: Department of Anthropology, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, USA

Title: Population structure

Author: Richard Nichols

Affiliation: School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

Based on "Population structure and human evolution". Cavalli-Sforza LL. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 1966 Mar 22;164(995):362-79.

Title: An Archeologist's point of view

Author: Stephen Shennan

Affiliation: Department of Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London, UK

Title: Pending

Author: Mark G. Thomas

Affiliation: UCL Genetics Institute, Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK

Title: Evolutionary/Phylogenetic methods

Author: Joseph Felsenstein

Affiliation: Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA

Based on "Phylogenetic analysis. Models and estimation procedures". Cavalli-Sforza LL, Edwards AW. Am J Hum Genet. 1967 May;19(3 Pt 1):233-57.

Title: Prehistoric spread rates and genetic clines

Author: Joaquim Fort

Affiliation: Complex Systems Laboratory, University of Girona, C/. Maria Aurèlia Capmany 61, 17003 Girona, Catalonia, Spain

Based on "The neolithic transition and the genetics of populations in Europe", 1984. Ammerman AJ, Cavalli-Sforza LL. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Published Papers

Review
Neolithic demic diffusion

Guido Barbujani

Human Population Genetics and Genomics https://doi.org/10.47248/hpgg2101010005

Received: Apr 7, 2021 | Accepted: Jul 28, 2021 | Published: Oct 16, 2021

Review
Revisiting the demographic history of Central African populations from a genetic perspective

Gwenna Breton, Cesar Fortes-Lima, Carina M. Schlebusch

Human Population Genetics and Genomics https://doi.org/10.47248/hpgg2101010004

Received: May 12, 2021 | Accepted: Jul 22, 2021 | Published: Oct 16, 2021

Review
Cultural versus biological inheritance: A retrospective view of Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman (1973)

Hao Shen, Marcus W. Feldman

Human Population Genetics and Genomics https://doi.org/10.47248/hpgg2101010003

Received: Apr 16, 2021 | Accepted: Jun 18, 2021 | Published: Oct 16, 2021

Letter to Editor
LUCA, as our father

Matteo Cavalli-Sforza, Francesco Cavalli-Sforza, Luca Tommaso Cavalli-Sforza, Violetta Cavalli-Sforza

Human Population Genetics and Genomics https://doi.org/10.47248/hpgg2101010002

Received: Mar 31, 2021 | Accepted: Sep 17, 2021 | Published: Oct 16, 2021

Editorial
Luca Cavalli-Sforza, 100 years after his birth

Lounès Chikhi, Guido Barbujani

Human Population Genetics and Genomics https://doi.org/10.47248/hpgg2101010001

Received: Sep 23, 2021 | Accepted: Sep 27, 2021 | Published: Oct 16, 2021