Evidence of widespread selection on standing variation in Europe at height-associated SNPs

Joel Hirschhorn and colleagues examine height-associated SNPs in northern- and southern-European populations. They report evidence of widespread weak selection on standing variation for height in humans. Strong signatures of positive selection at newly arising genetic variants are well documented in humans1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, but this form of selection may not be widespread in recent human evolution9. Because many human traits are highly polygenic...