to different levels of starch in diets of different populations. Eight populations from different continents were categorized into high starch diets and low starch diets and their AMY1 gene copy number was visualized using high resolution FISH and qPCR. It was found that the high starch diet populations which consists of the Japanese, Hadza, and European American populations had a significantly higher (two times higher) average AMY1 copy number than the low starch diet populations including Biaka, Mbuti, Datog, Yakut populations. It was hypothesized that the levels of starch in one’s regular diet, the substrate for AMY1, can directly affect the copy number of the AMY1 gene. Since it was concluded that the copy number of AMY1 is directly correlated with salivary amylase, the more starch present in the population’s daily diet, the more evolutionarily favorable it is to have multiple copies of the AMY1 gene. The AMY1 gene was the first gene to provide strong evidence for evolution on a molecular genetics level. Moreover, using comparative genomic hybridization, copy number variations of the entire genomes of the Japanese population was compared to that of the Yakut population. It was found that the copy number variation of the AMY1 gene was significantly different from the copy number variation in other genes or regions of the genome, suggesting that the AMY1 gene was under a strong selective pressure that had little or no influence on the other copy number variations. Finally, the variability of length of 783 microsatellites between the two populations were compared to copy number variability of the AMY1 gene. It was found that the AMY1 gene copy number range was larger than that of over 97% of the microsatellites examined. This implies that natural selection played a considerable role in shaping the average number of AMY1 genes in these two populations. However, as only six populations were studied, it is important to consider the possibility that there may be other factors in their diet or culture that influenced the AMY1 copy number other than starch. Although it is unclear when the AMY1 gene copy number began to increase, it is known and confirmed that the AMY1 gene existed in early primates. Chimpanzees, the closest evolutionary relatives to humans, were found to have two diploid copies of the AMY1 gene that is identical in length to the human AMY1 gene, which is significantly less than that of humans. On