Michel Raymond

Université de Montpellier | UM1 · Institut des Sciences de l’Évolution Montpellier (ISEM)

Natural and sexual selection can be in conflict in driving the evolution of sexual ornamentation. Sexual selection favours detectability to potential mates, whereas natural selection penalises detectability to avoid predators. Focusing on signal efficiency rather than detectability, however, suggests that natural and sexual selection need not be an...

During COVID-19 pandemic several public health measures were implemented by diverse countries to reduce the risk of COVID-19, including social distancing. Here we collected the minimal distance recommended by each country for physical distancing at the onset of the pandemic and aimed to examine whether it had an impact on the outbreak dynamics and...

Male homosexual orientation remains a Darwinian paradox, as there is no consensus on its evolutionary (ultimate) determinants. One intriguing feature of homosexual men is their higher male birth rank compared to heterosexual men. This can be explained by two non-exclusive mechanisms: an antagonistic effect (AE), implying that more fertile women hav...

It has been shown that living in risky environments, as well as having a risky occupation, can moderate risk-tolerance. Despite the involvement of dopamine in the expectation of reward described by neurobiologists, a GWAS study was not able to demonstrate a genetic contribution of genes involved in the dopaminergic pathway in risk attitudes and gen...

Background: Glucometabolic changes, such as high glycemic load (GL) diet and insulin resistance (IR), are potential risk factor of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Yet, the effect of these factors on brain alterations that contribute to AD pathology has not been clearly demonstrated. Objective: We aimed to assess the relationship of GL and IR with gray...

It has been shown that living in risky environments, as well as having a risky occupation, can moderate risk-tolerance. Despite the involvement of dopamine in the expectation of reward described by neurobiologists, a GWAS study was not able to demonstrate a genetic contribution of genes involved in the dopaminergic pathway in risk attitudes and gen...

Previous studies have highlighted links between a high-glycemic-load (GL) diet and Alzheimer’s disease in apolipoprotein E ε4 (APOE4) carriers. However, the impact of high-GL diet on plasma amyloid-β (Aβ), an Alzheimer’s disease hallmark that can be detected decades before clinical symptomatology, is unknown. This study examined the association bet...

Sexual prejudice and its negative consequences remain major issues in Western societies, and numerous studies have tried to pinpoint its sociocultural underpinnings. However, most research has operationalized sexual prejudice via self-report measures or via implicit association tests (IATs), although it surfaces in language use and can be traced in...

Being phylogenetically close involves greater empathic perceptions towards other species. To explore this phenomenon, this study investigates the influence of neurocognitive predispositions to empathy on our perceptions of other organisms. Autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterized, among others, by weakened empathic skills. Our online sur...

Male homosexual orientation remains a Darwinian paradox, as there is no consensus on its evolutionary determinants. One intriguing feature of homosexual men is their higher male birth rank compared to heterosexual men. This can be explained by two non-exclusive mechanisms: an antagonistic effect (AE), implying that more fertile women have a higher...

Background Recent evidence suggests that a high refined‐carbohydrate diet is a risk factor for dementia, especially among APOE4 carriers. Thus, refined‐carbohydrate diet may modify biomarkers of dementia, such as amyloid‐β (Aβ) peptides according to APOE4 carrier status. Here, we focus on afternoon‐snack glycemic load (GL) because snacks are genera...

The ‘pollen test’ and ‘fruit set test’ following controlled crossing combinations of parents are the most commonly used methods for pollination incompatibility studies in Olea europaea L. Self-incompatibility (SI), with diagnoses based on the pollen test and pollen germination, indicating self-compatibility, is not always followed by fruit set in t...

Being phylogenetically close involves a greater empathy towards other species. To explore this phenomenon, this study investigates the influence of neurocognitive predispositions to empathy on our perceptions of other organisms’ emotions. Autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterized, among others, by weakened empathic skills. Our online surv...

Sexual stereotyping and its negative consequences remain major issues in Western societies. Sexual prejudice is often nurtured by the socio-cultural background in which individuals grow up, making differences in sexual prejudice especially visible in multicultural societies. In France, one example of such a multicultural society with a high number...

Chez l'olivier DSSM (Dual screen-successive model) implique deux mécanismes indépendants l'un DSI (di-allelic Self-Incompatibility) dirige la germination du pollen sur le stigmate, puis PASI (poly-allelic Self-Incompatibility) dirige le cheminement du tube pollinique de l'extérieur de l'ovaire dans les ovules pour produire le fruit. DSSM explique q...

Surprisingly, the study of human voice evolution has long been conducted without any reference to its biological function. Yet, following Darwin’s original concept, John Ohala was the first linguist to assume the functional role of sexual selection to explain vocal dimorphism in humans. Nevertheless, it is only at the very beginning of the millenni...

Background In animal models, carbohydrates increase β‐amyloid aggregation, tau phosphorylation and hippocampal atrophy which lead to the development of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In epidemiological studies, cross‐sectional analyses on the impact of carbohydrate consumption on cognition are inconsistent. Besides, the long‐term effects of high carbohy...

Recent evidence suggests that a high glycemic load (GL) diet is a risk factor for dementia, especially among apolipoprotein E ε4 allele (APOE4) carriers, while its association with cognitive decline is poorly known. Here, we investigated the association of high-GL meals with cognitive decline in older adults during a 12-year follow-up, according to...

Since the second half of the 20th century, a massive increase in the consumption of refined carbohydrates has occurred, generating well-described detrimental health effects such as obesity, insulin resistance, type II diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and dental caries. Certain physiological mechanisms involved, particularly through chronic hypergl...

Potential differences between homosexual and heterosexual men have been studied on a diverse set of social and biological traits. Regarding acoustic features of speech, researchers have hypothesized a feminization of such characteristics in homosexual men, but previous investigations have so far produced mixed results. Moreover, most studies have b...

Beyond the linguistic content it conveys, voice is one of the fundamental aspects of human communication. It conveys an array of bio-psycho-social information about a speaker and enables the expression of a wide range of emotional and affective states so as to elicit a whole range of auditory impressions. Such aspects are of a great importance in d...

Abstract Background Evaluate risk factors for paediatric myopia in a contemporary French cohort taking into account consumption of refined carbohydrates (starches and sugars). Methods An epidemiological cross-sectional study was conducted between May 2017 and May 2018. Two hundred sixty-four children aged 4 to 18 years attending the Centre Hospital...

Introduction: In animal models, refined carbohydrates (RF) worsen Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, the long-term effects of high RF intake on the risk of dementia and AD are poorly described in epidemiological studies. Moreover, the interaction between RF and the apolipoprotein E ε4 allele (APOE-ε4) is unknown. Our study investigated whether RF-...

Currently the planet is inhabited by several millions of extremely diversified species. Not all of them arouse emotions of the same nature or intensity in humans. Little is known about the extent of our affective responses toward them and the factors that may explain these differences. Our online survey involved 3500 raters who had to make choices...

Why a postfertile stage has evolved in females of some species has puzzled evolutionary biologists for over 50 years. We propose that existing adaptive explanations have underestimated in their formulation an important parameter operating both at the specific and the individual levels: the balance between cancer risks and cancer defenses. During th...

In modern societies, there is a decreased usage of traditional weapons to settle interpersonal or inter-group disputes compared to usage in traditional societies, possibly affecting the frequency-dependent selection on the handedness polymorphism. Another societal difference is the extensive automation of hard manual labour (including agriculture)...

Male homosexual preference (MHP) is an evolutionary enigma because it is partially heritable and imposes a fertility cost. In occidental societies, homosexual men are feminized at various levels and they have more older brothers than heterosexual men. To evaluate whether femininity and the fraternal birth order (FBO) effect are universal features o...

Low- and high-frequency vowels in the stressed syllable of French first names may respectively project impressions of largeness/masculinity and smallness/femininity. Abstract: Given that first names can have a lifelong impact on the bearer, parents should choose a name based on the impressions they want their offspring to evoke in other people. T...

In both correlational and experimental settings, studies on women’s vocal preferences have reported negative relationships between perceived attractiveness and men’s vocal pitch, emphasizing the idea of an adaptive preference. However, such consensus on vocal attractiveness has been mostly conducted with native English speakers, but a few evidence...

Male homosexual preference (MHP) challenges evolutionary thinking because the preference for male–male relationships is heritable, implies a fertility cost (lower offspring number), and is relatively frequent in some societies (2–6% in Western countries) for a costly trait. It has been proposed that individuals with a MHP counterbalance reproductiv...

Through behavioral correlations, mate choice could influence the evolution of traits that are not directly selected for, or even observed. We addressed whether mound building, a unique collective behavior observed in Mus spicilegus, could be favored by female mate choice, irrespective of whether females were able to observe the behavior. First, we...

Beyond the linguistic content of their speech, speakers of both sexes convey diverse biological and psychosocial information through their voices, which are important when assessing potential mates and competitors. However, studies investigating the relationships between mating success and acoustic inter-individual differences are scarce. In this s...

A great number of studies have shown that features linked to immediate fertility explain a large part of the variance in female attractiveness. This is consistent with an evolutionary perspective, as men are expected to prefer females at the age at which fertility peaks (at least for short-term relationships) in order to increase their reproductive...

Whether right- and left-handedness are defined as a function of individual tasks or represent general categories across tasks has been long debated. However, the literature on handedness primarily concerns industrialized societies in which manual work has been extensively automated, and the majority of individuals in those countries do not use thei...

Menopause, the permanent cessation of ovulation, occurs in humans well before the end of the expected lifespan, leading to an extensive post-reproductive period which remains a puzzle for evolutionary biologists. All human populations display this particularity; thus, it is difficult to empirically evaluate the conditions for its emergence. In this...

Menopause, the permanent cessation of ovulation, occurs in women well before the end of their expected life span. Several adaptive hypotheses have been proposed to solve this evolutionary puzzle, each based on a possible fitness benefit derived from an early reproductive senescence, but no consensus has emerged. The construction of a game theory mo...

Scientific Reports 6 : Article number: 37745 10.1038/srep37745 ; published online: 01 December 2016 ; updated: 09 March 2017 The Acknowledgements section in this Article is incomplete.

Changes in diet are frequently correlated with the occurrence and progression of malignant tumors (i.e. cancer) in both humans and other animals, but an integrated conceptual framework to interpret these changes still needs to be developed. Our aim is to provide a new perspective on dietary changes in tumor-bearing individuals by adapting concepts...

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The coexistence of left- and right-handers is documented since prehistoric times, in all current ethnic groups, with some geographical frequency variations. Hand preference is influenced by genetic, hormonal, developmental, and cultural factors. Overall handedness is heritable, suggesting that this trait could evolve. Neutral models of evolution se...

Humans have colonized and adapted to extremely diverse environments, and the genetic basis of some such adaptations, for example to high altitude, is understood. In some cases, local or regional variation in selection pressure could also cause behavioural adaptations. Numerous genes influence behaviour, such as alleles at the dopamine receptor locu...

Humans have colonized and adapted to extremely diverse environments, and the genetic basis of some such adaptations, for example to high altitude, is understood. In some cases, local or regional variation in selection pressure could also cause behavioural adaptations. Numerous genes influence behaviour, such as alleles at the dopamine receptor locu...

The aesthetic value of landscapes contributes to human well-being. However, studies which have investigated the link between biodiversity and ecosystem services have not taken aesthetic value into account. In this study we evaluated how the aesthetics of coralligenous reefs, a key marine ecosystem in the Mediterranean, is perceived by the general p...

The evolutionary reasons for sleep remain controversial. The immune theory of sleep suggests that sleep is essential to the immune system, allowing organisms to allocate more energy to their immunity. This hypothesis was tested by exploring the links between excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) and vulnerability to infectious diseases in a large (n =...

Table S1. Results of all statistical models. The tables provide, for each explanatory variable of the full model (i.e. without removing non-significant terms), the magnitude of the slope (β) and its standard error (SE), the t-value of the test β=0 and its significance P(t), the residual standard error of the model (RSE), the degrees of freedom (df)...

Sexual ornaments are often assumed to be indicators of mate quality. Yet it remains poorly known how certain ornaments are chosen before any coevolutionary race makes them indicative. Perceptual biases have been proposed to play this role, but known biases are mostly restricted to a specific taxon, which precludes evaluating their general importanc...

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“Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye” (Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost), but the bodily features governing this critical biological choice are still debated. Eye movement studies have demonstrated that males sample coarse body regions expanding from the face, the breasts and the midriff, while making female attractiveness judgements with natu...

Male homosexual preference (MHP) has long been of interest to scholars studying the evolution of human sexuality. Indeed, MHP is partially heritable, induces a reproductive cost and is common. MHP has thus been considered a Darwinian paradox. Several questions arise when MHP is considered in an evolutionary context. At what point did MHP appear in...

Human cultural traits typically result from a gradual process that has been described as analogous to biological evolution. This observation has led pioneering scholars to draw inspiration from population genetics to develop a rigorous and successful theoretical framework of cultural evolution. Social learning, the mechanism allowing information to...

The ratio between the body circumference at the waist and the hips (or WHR) is a secondary sexual trait that is unique to humans and is well known to influence men's mate preferences. Because a woman's WHR also provides information about her age, health and fertility, men's preference concerning this physical feature may possibly be a cognitive ada...

Replying to C. Andersson & D. Read Nature 511, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13411 (2014) In the accompanying Comment1, Andersson & Read challenge our results2 that group size influences cultural complexity. Using a dual-task computer game, our experiment demonstrated that an increasing group size prevents the loss of cultural traits (simple and...

Understanding how individuals identify their relatives has implications for the evolution of social behaviour. Kinship cues might be based on familiarity, but in the face of paternity uncertainty and costly paternal investment, other mechanisms such as phenotypic matching may have evolved. In humans, paternal recognition of offspring and subsequent...

Why some women have more attractive face than others has been the focus of many studies. For short-term mating, males are expected to prefer females at the age of peak fertility. In fact, facial fertility cues have been linked to female attractiveness. For long-term partnerships, a high residual reproductive value - the expected future reproductive...

Cooperative behaviour and generosity towards nonkin represent costly and risky behaviour that could be used as a signal of mate quality. Therefore, cooperative traits could serve as criteria in mate choice, leading to assortative mating for those traits. There is evidence of similarity in couples for altruistic traits. However, the literature is ba...

The remarkable ecological and demographic success of humanity is largely attributed to our capacity for cumulative culture. The accumulation of beneficial cultural innovations across generations is puzzling because transmission events are generally imperfect, although there is large variance in fidelity. Events of perfect cultural transmission and...

There is evidence in the literature that non-verbal physical features are used as cues for a propensity to cooperate. However, further studies of the human ability to visually detect cooperativeness are required. In particular, the existence of static facial cues of altruism remains questionable. Moreover, an investigation of both sex differences a...

The ubiquitous and persistent handedness polymorphism in humans requires an evolutionary explanation. It has been suggested that left-handers have a frequency-dependent advantage during a fight, such that this advantage decreases when their frequency increases. Many independent studies are providing data from interactive sports (a specific class of...