Can anyone explain how the Human Blood Type"O", had 3 successful mutations(A,B,AB) in the past 15,000+/- years

Question

...after remaining stable for the first 200,000 years of the existence of Homo Sapiens?

Answer 1

I don't know but it's interesting.

Answer 2

Who says it was stable all that time?

Answer 3

slight correction blood type AB is not a separate evaluation it is co-dominance of the genes that create types A and B.

blood types among the great apes are pretty much the same as with humans, chimps are mostly A some O and we have yet to find one with type B gorillas are mostly B some O and no A so no AB for either species (i have no data on orangutans as of yet)

as it is very improbable that we and the gorillas evolved type B separately i am inclined to think that selective pressures have acted on chimps and gorillas to push them towards A and B respectably.

the second link is to a chart for the frequency of the different blood types in various ethnic groups it may help with your questions

Answer 4

Different blood types mean different surface antigens on blood cells.  These surface antigens play a  role in immune response.

It is likely that different surface antigens became adaptive traits during epidemics of particular diseases (e.g. black plague killing type B but not type A).  Natural selection would have favored type A, but type B's would not have been entirely eliminated in the general population.

Here's one article, but there are probably lots of them out there.  http://www.hhmi.org/cgi-bin/askascientis...

If disease epidemic is the primary reason that natural selection might favor a blood type (surface antigen) mutation, then it makes sense that we'd see this come into play relatively recently.  Humans didn't always live in big, crowded groups and didn't always travel to spread disease from one big group to the next.  Increased population density means disease epidemics are more likely to play a role in natural selection..

BTW, apes have different blood types too.

Answer 5

Evolution baby! Evolution!