High in the Ecuadorian Andes, at altitudes thousands of meters above sea level, humans face environmental pressures very different from those at lower altitudes.

The human body can acclimatize, physiologically, to the lower levels of oxygen in the air at higher altitudes. Higher levels of ultraviolet radiation also present a challenge in high mountain environments.

Over millennia, these conditions can shape which genetic traits persist through the generations , with indigenous populations showing lasting differences to acclimatized newcomers.

The body's response to altitude can also affect how genes are regulated, as scientists have now observed in Indigenous Andean Kichwa communities. It's not evolution in the genetic sense, but part of the flexible, epigenetic toolkit our cell

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