yeetussonofretardes OP t1_j0aknwn wrote
Reply to comment by DiggleDootBROPBROPBR in What is the evolutionary advantage of primates losing endogenous Vitamin C production? And are there nowadays humans who are able to produce their own Vitamin C? by yeetussonofretardes
Very interesting! But if I understand the paper correctly, the process that is explained there is not an advantage of not synthezising Vitamin C, but it is a separate process that helps with reducing the amount of Vitamin C required, so primates can live on solely dietary Vitamin C in the first place, right?
DiggleDootBROPBROPBR t1_j0byotx wrote
The advantage they cite is protection from seasonal scarcity due to needing less vitamin C. So during resource deprivation there is a window where the mutant only suffers from conventional malnutrition, whereas the non-mutant's mechanisms for creating endogenous vitamin C are also impacted. So the non-mutant suffers from both malnutrition AND scurvy, which presumably kills them faster. Eventually, the mutant would also suffer from scurvy.
That's mostly speculative though, there would need to be some kind of starvation study done between species to figure out which one dies first. That would be unethical :(
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