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1.
Variations in the birth sex ratio and neonatal mortality in a natural herd of horses 总被引:3,自引:0,他引:3
Anne-Marie Monard Patrick Duncan Hervé Fritz Claudia Feh 《Behavioral ecology and sociobiology》1997,41(4):243-249
Variations in birth sex ratios and sex differences in juvenile mortality occur in a number of mammalian species, and in many
cases have been linked to resource availability. Most of these biases in offspring sex ratios concern polygynous species with
pronounced sexual dimorphism, and where females only are philopatric. Data on species with unusual life-history strategies,
such as slight sexual dimorphism or dispersal by both sexes, are of particular interest. In this study of a natural herd of
horses (Equus caballus) which experienced an eruptive cycle, and therefore a period of nutritional stress, male offspring had higher neonatal mortality
rates in nutritionally poor years than in good ones, whereas “year quality” had no effect on the mortality of female offspring;
year quality could therefore be used by mares as predictor of sex-specific offspring survival. We show that the environmental
conditions that predicted lower survival of males were negatively related to their production: the birth sex ratio the following
year was female-biased; and mares were less likely to produce a son when they had produced a son the preceding year. There
was no significant effect of mother's parity, age or rank, or the timing of conception or birth on offspring sex ratios. The
mechanism leading to biases in the birth sex ratio could have been the loss of male embryos by mares that did not foal. As
there was no evidence for selective abortion of male foetuses in females that did foal the next year, it is not necessary
to invoke maternal adjustment, though this remains a possibility. Finally, there was a suggestion that male offspring were
more costly to raise than females, since mothers that reared a son in poor years tended to experience an increase in the interbirth
interval between their two subsequent offspring.
Received: 28 December 1996 / Accepted after revision: 27 July 1997 相似文献
2.
Diana O. Fisher 《Behavioral ecology and sociobiology》1999,45(6):411-419
The bridled nailtail wallaby is a sexually size dimorphic, promiscuous, solitary macropod. Sex ratios of pouch young were
studied at two sites over 3 years, beginning with 14 months of severe drought. Females that were in better condition were
more likely to have sons, and condition was dependent on body size. Females at one site were heavier, were consequently in
better condition, and produced more sons than females at the other site. Females that declined in condition had more daughters
during the most severe part of the drought than females that maintained condition, but endoparasite infection did not affect
the pouch young sex ratio. Age also appeared to affect sex ratio adjustment, because weight was strongly influenced by age.
Sex ratio bias was not caused by early offspring mortality, but occurred at conception. Mothers did not appear to bias energy
expenditure on sons or daughters; males and females did not differ in condition at the end of pouch life. Pouch young sex
ratio variation was most consistent with the Trivers-Willard hypothesis, but could also have been influenced by local resource
competition, since sons dispersed further than daughters. Offspring condition was related to survival, and was correlated
with maternal condition.
Received: 14 April 1998 / Accepted after revision: 10 November 1998 相似文献
3.
Cor Dijkstra Bernd Riedstra Arjan Dekker Vivian C. Goerlich Serge Daan Ton G. G. Groothuis 《Behavioral ecology and sociobiology》2010,64(9):1393-1402
When the reproductive value of male and female offspring varies differentially, parents are predicted to adjust the sex ratio
of their offspring to maximize their fitness (Trivers and Willard, Science 179:90–92, 1973). Two factors have been repeatedly linked to skews in avian offspring sex ratio. First, laying date can affect offspring
sex ratio when the sexes differ in age of first reproduction, such that the more slowly maturing sex is overproduced early
in the season. Second, position of the egg in the laying sequence of a clutch may affect sex ratio bias since manipulating
the sex of the first eggs may be least costly to the mother. We studied both factors in two non-domesticated pigeon species.
Both the Wood pigeon (Columba palumbus) and the Rock pigeon (Columba livia) have long breeding seasons and lay two-egg clutches. In the field, we determined the sex of Wood pigeon nestlings. In Rock
pigeons, housed in captivity outdoors, we determined embryo sex after 3 days of incubation. On the basis of their sex-specific
age of first reproduction, we predicted that males, maturing at older age than females, should be produced in majority early
and females later in the year. This was confirmed for both species. The bias was restricted to first eggs. Rock pigeons produced
clutches throughout the year and show that the sex of the first egg followed an annual cycle. To our knowledge, this study
presents the first evidence of a full annual rhythm in adaptive sex allocation in birds. We suggest that this reflects an
endogenous seasonal program in primary sex ratio controlled by a preovulatory mechanism. 相似文献
4.
Brood sex ratio is dependent on female mating status in polygynous great reed warblers 总被引:2,自引:0,他引:2
Isao Nishiumi 《Behavioral ecology and sociobiology》1998,44(1):9-14
Females capable of adjusting the sex ratio of their offspring should be more fit than females lacking such an ability. In
polygynous birds where breeding success in males is more strongly influenced by body size and/or attractiveness than in females,
females might produce more sons when predicting good conditions or when mating with attractive males. Polygynous great reed
warbler, Acrocephalusarundinaceus, males direct most of their feeding effort to the primary (first-hatching) nest and in these nests increase their feeding
effort in relation to the brood sex ratio (proportion of sons). Therefore, with the expectation of well-nourished sons, we
would predict that females which start breeding first within harems might produce more sons than those which start breeding
later, and in anticipation of sons with good genes, that females mated to polygynous males might produce more sons than females
mated to monogamous males. I took blood samples from hatchlings and determined the sex using DNA markers. The sex ratio of
primary (monogamous and polygynous primary) broods is more male-biased (mean 0.58 males, n = 50) than that of secondary (polygynous secondary and tertiary) broods (mean 0.46, n = 25). Moreover, in the secondary broods with the largest clutch (five eggs), in which offspring are most likely to suffer
food shortage, the sex ratio was distinctively female biased (mean 0.33, n = 10). In the primary broods, sex ratio was correlated to harem size. The results suggest that great reed warbler females
modify the brood sex ratio to produce both well-nourished sons and sons with good genes, but the former effect is probably
stronger than the latter factor.
Received: 11 March 1998 / Accepted after revision: 23 May 1998 相似文献
5.
Claire W. Varian-Ramos Jordan Karubian Vanessa Talbott Irma Tapia Michael S. Webster 《Behavioral ecology and sociobiology》2010,64(6):967-977
The repayment hypothesis posits that primary sex ratios in cooperative species should be biased towards the helping sex because
these offspring “repay” a portion of their cost through helping behavior and therefore are less expensive to produce. However,
many cooperatively breeding birds and mammals do not show the predicted bias in the primary sex ratio. Recent theoretical
work has suggested that the repayment hypothesis should only hold when females gain a large fitness advantage from the presence
of auxiliary adults in the group. When auxiliaries provide little or no fitness advantage, competition between relatives should
lead to sex ratios biased towards the dispersing (non-helping) sex. We examined the benefits auxiliaries provide to females
and corresponding offspring sex ratios in the red-backed fairy-wren (Malurus melanocephalus), a cooperatively breeding Australian bird with male auxiliary helpers. We found that auxiliaries provide little or no benefit
to female reproductive success or survival. As predicted, the population primary sex ratio was biased towards daughters, the
dispersing sex, and females with auxiliaries produced female-biased broods whereas females without auxiliaries produced unbiased
broods. Moreover, offspring sex ratios were more strongly biased toward females in years when auxiliaries were more common
in the population. These results suggest that offspring sex ratios are associated with competition among the non-dispersing
sex in this species, and also that females may use cues to assess local breeding opportunities for their offspring. 相似文献
6.
By scoring the chromosome number of developing embryos, we show that the sex ratio bias of the African social spider Stegodyphus dumicola Pocock is the result of an overproduction of female embryos. Only 17% of 585 embryos sexed from 14 egg sacs were male, a
significant departure from a 1:1 sex ratio. We also explored the possibility of direct control of the sex of individual offspring
in this species by examining the variance in the number of males per sac and the spatial distribution of male and female embryos
within the sacs. We postulated that a variance in the number of males per sac lower than binomial (i.e., underdispersed or
precise sex ratios) or a non-random distribution of male embryos within the sacs would suggest direct control of the sex of
individual offspring. We found that the variance in the number of males per sac was indistinguishable from binomial and significantly
larger than expected under exact ratios. Likewise, the spatial distribution of male embryos within three sacs examined was
no more clustered than expected by chance. The sex ratio biasing mechanism in this species, therefore, apparently only allows
control of the mean sex ratio but not of its variance. We present randomization and Monte Carlo methods that can be applied
to test for departures from a random spatial arrangement of male and female embryos in an egg mass and for departures from
binomial or exact ratios when not all members of a clutch have been sexed.
Received: 21 October 1998 / Received in revised form: 23 March 1999 / Accepted: 26 April 1999 相似文献
7.
M. S. Mooring A. A. McKenzie Benjamin L. Hart 《Behavioral ecology and sociobiology》1996,38(4):259-266
The lesser mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus) is a prosimian primate which presents evidence of sex ratio bias of offspring that agrees with the direction of bias predicted
by the local resource competition model for facultative sex ratio adjustment. That is, females overproduced sons when grouped
prior to mating, whereas isolated females exhibited the opposite tendency. In this solitary species, social communication
relies heavily on urinary chemical signals. To test the hypothesis that sex biases induced by social factors may be linked
to urinary cues, isolated females were exposed (n = 76) or not (control group, n = 16) to urinary cues from other reproductively active females from the beginning of the breeding season (induced by long
photoperiod) until oestrus. During that period, females were either continuously (n = 17) or partially (n = 59) exposed to chemosignal stimulation. Females in oestrus were placed in contact with a breeding male and subsequently
isolated until they gave birth. All females entered oestrus but the timing of oestrus was significantly delayed by 1 week
in urine-exposed females. A general depressive effect of long-term urine exposure on fecundity was demonstrated, involving
fewer impregnations, higher abortion frequency and smaller litter sizes. Among females giving birth (n = 55) to a total of 129 young, a significant positive correlation was found between sex ratio bias towards males and the
duration of urine exposure. However, the shift in sex ratio at birth depended on the duration of urine stimulation during
a sensitive period extending from the beginning of the long photoperiod until the beginning of the follicular phase. In the
absence of urinary cues during the sensitive period, females significantly overproduced daughters (32% males of 53 newborn).
As urine exposure increased during the sensitive phase, the proportion of males in litters increased from 54% males (n = 50) in partially urine-exposed females to a significant bias towards males (69.2% of 26 newborn) in totally exposed females.
The biased sex ratio in response to chemical cues did not show consistent relationships with maternal body weight, parity
or litter size. Although the intrinsic mechanisms involved in sex-biased conceptions are not known, chemical cues could interact
with the photoperiodic control of gonadotropin secretions.
Received: 14 January 1995/Accepted after revision: 26 November 1995 相似文献
8.
The influence of different diets (Tetramin dry fish food, frozen spinach, and Dieterba mixed cereals for babies) on survival,
fecundity and sex ratio was examined in a population of the polychaete Dinophilus gyrociliatus. Specimens were collected in the harbour of Genoa and were studied under controlled laboratory conditions. In D. gyrociliatus sex determination is progamic; a single ovary produces eggs of two sizes, the small eggs develop into dwarf males and the
large ones into females. Sex determination is chromosomal with male heterogamety of the XO/XX type, and therefore a 1:1 population
sex ratio is expected. The results of the experiment revealed that diet significantly influenced survival, fecundity and also
the sex ratio. With all diets the maximum lifespan was about the same, but after 10 weeks of experiments the percentage of
survivors was 9% with Tetramin, 35% with spinach and 39% with cereals. Fecundity was different in relation to diet; females
fed with Tetramin produced the maximum number of eggs. The greater and earlier mortality with the Tetramin diet could be related
to the greater fecundity seen in this group, in that, the greater amount of energy allocated to the production of gametes
may have reduced the percentage of individuals surviving to maximum age. In this species, diet affected not only fecundity
but also the sex ratio; the worms fed with cereals showed a clear displacement of sex ratio towards males.
Received: 10 March 1997 / Accepted: 22 September 1998 相似文献
9.
Kelly M. Proffitt Robert A. Garrott Jay J. Rotella 《Behavioral ecology and sociobiology》2008,62(10):1679-1687
The Trivers–Willard model predicts that in polygynous species, superior-quality females will maximize their fitness by producing
male offspring. Using a sample of 1,780 Weddell seal (Leptonychotes weddellii) pups recorded over 31 years, we investigated relationships between offspring sex ratio and maternal age, reproductive experience,
an index of maternal lifetime reproductive output, and annual environmental variations. We found evidence that females with
higher index of lifetime reproductive output were more likely to produce male than female offspring but found only weak evidence
that large-scale environmental variations influenced sex ratios. Our results suggest that mothers manipulate offspring sex
to maximize their own fitness, and inherent maternal quality may influence offspring sex. These findings support the Trivers–Willard
sex-allocation model.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. 相似文献
10.
Maternal investment, sex-differential prospects, and the sex ratio in wild house mice 总被引:2,自引:0,他引:2
Sven Krackow 《Behavioral ecology and sociobiology》1997,41(6):435-443
In a population of first-generation offspring from wild-caught house mice (Mus musculus domesticus), previous evidence suggested that male fitness is more strongly affected by an increase in body weight than female fitness.
This paper shows that in these mice the young are weaned at heavier weights the smaller the litter and the better the maternal
body condition. These effects persisted into adulthood and were less pronounced in female young. However, contrary to expectation
from conventional sex ratio theory, maternal condition and litter size had no detectable effect on sex ratios. Also, litter
size did not affect sex ratios in two populations of laboratory-kept, wild-caught western (M. m. domesticus) and eastern house mice (M. m. musculus). Wild house mice, therefore, appear not to adaptively manipulate the sex ratio of offspring. It is argued that this absence
of sex ratio trends might not be maladaptive, but rather that models currently used to predict sex ratio trends in rodents
may not be valid.
Received: 13 March 1997 / Accepted after revision: 9 August 1997 相似文献
11.
J. A. Baeza A. A. Braga L. S. López-Greco E. Perez M. L. Negreiros-Fransozo A. Fransozo 《Marine Biology》2010,157(12):2643-2653
One of the main goals of sex allocation theory is understanding sex ratio evolution. However, theoretical studies predicting
sex ratios in species with unusual sexual systems, such as protandric simultaneous (PS) hermaphroditism, are rare. In PS hermaphrodites,
juveniles first develop into functional males that mature into simultaneous hermaphrodites later in life. Here, we report
on the sex ratio (males/males + hermaphrodites) in the PS hermaphroditic shrimp Exhippolysmata oplophoroides. A 2-year study demonstrated that hermaphrodites dominated the population in two different bays. This skewed sex ratio may
be explained by limited encounter rates among conspecifics. In agreement with this idea, the density of shrimps was extremely
low (≤1 shrimp km−2) at the two study sites. Size at sex phase change and sex ratios remained relatively stable through time at the two bays.
The stability of these parameters might be explained by the rather steady population structure of this species during the
study period. A review of sex ratios in PS hermaphroditic shrimps (Lysmata and Exhippolysmata) revealed considerable variation; some species have male- and others hermaphrodite-skewed sex ratios. The conditions explaining
inter- and intra-specific sex ratio variation in protandric simultaneous hermaphroditic species remain to be addressed. 相似文献
12.
Facultative sex ratio manipulation in American kestrels 总被引:10,自引:0,他引:10
Summary For animals that are sexually dimorphic in size, the larger sex is expected to be more costly to raise to independence. Manipulating offspring sex ratios may thus be one means by which parents can fine-tune their reproductive effort to resource availability. Parents in poor physical condition or during poor food years should produce more of the cheaper (smaller) sex. We examined the sex ratios of 259 broods of American kestrels (Falco sparverius) between 1988 and 1990 in relation to food abundance (small mammals) and various attributes to the parents. The proportion of males at hatching increased as the food supply declined, and both male and female parents in poor physical condition were more likely to have male-biased broods than those in good condition. The mortality of eggs and young did not appear to be responsible for the biased sex ratios. The sex ratio was independent of the laying date; however, it was correlated with female body size. Small females produced more sons, perhaps because small size is more detrimental for females than males.
Offprint requests to: G.R. Bortolotti 相似文献
13.
Verena Dietrich-Bischoff Tim Schmoll Wolfgang Winkel Sven Krackow Thomas Lubjuhn 《Behavioral ecology and sociobiology》2006,60(4):563-571
Females of many socially monogamous bird species commonly engage in extra-pair copulations. Assuming that extra-pair males are more attractive than the females’ social partners and that attractiveness has a heritable component, sex allocation theory predicts facultative overproduction of sons among extra-pair offspring (EPO) as sons benefit more than daughters from inheriting their father’s attractiveness traits. Here, we present a large-scale, three-year study on sex ratio variation in a passerine bird, the coal tit (Parus ater). Molecular sexing in combination with paternity analysis revealed no evidence for a male-bias in EPO sex ratios compared to their within-pair maternal half-siblings. Our main conclusion, therefore, is that facultative sex allocation to EPO is absent in the coal tit, in accordance with findings in several other species. Either there is no net selection for a deviation from random sex ratio variation (e.g. because extra-pair mating may serve goals different from striving for ‘attractiveness genes’) or evolutionary constraints preclude the evolution of precise maternal sex ratio adjustment. It is interesting to note that, however, we found broods without EPO as well as broods without mortality to be relatively female-biased compared to broods with EPO and mortality, respectively. We were unable to identify any environmental or parental variable to co-vary with brood sex ratios. There was no significant repeatability of sex ratios in consecutive broods of individual females that would hint at some idiosyncratic maternal sex ratio adjustment. Further research is needed to resolve the biological significance of the correlation between brood sex ratios and extra-pair paternity and mortality incidence, respectively. 相似文献
14.
Theory suggests that maternal effects are especially important in organisms with environmentally-sensitive sex-determining mechanisms. However, there is no substantive body of empirical evidence to confirm this conjecture. We integrated field and laboratory studies to jointly evaluate the significance of behavioral (nest-site choice) and physiological (yolk hormone allocation) maternal effects on offspring sex ratio in the common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina), a species with temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD). Of the 16 microhabitat variables measured, only three (south, east, and total overstory vegetation cover) were significantly correlated with nest temperature: cooler nests were located under more vegetation cover. In turn, these microhabitat predictors of nest temperature, and nest temperature itself, may influence nest sex ratio: shadier, cooler nests were more likely to produce a higher proportion of male offspring than less shady, warmer nests. Analysis of eggs from these same nests incubated in a common garden design in the laboratory revealed that clutch sex ratio was unaffected by levels of yolk estradiol, yolk testosterone, or their interaction. Examination of both behavioral and physiological maternal effects revealed no concordant impact on offspring sex ratio. However, eggs from nests that produced male-biased sex ratios in the field yielded higher proportions of males under constant-temperature conditions in the laboratory. Our study confirms the importance of behavioral maternal effects in nature on offspring sex ratios in species with TSD, while also revealing the potential presence of a predisposition for sex-ratio production underlying TSD in this system.Communicated by S. Krackow 相似文献
15.
D. M. Shuker E. M. Sykes L. E. Browning L. W. Beukeboom S. A. West 《Behavioral ecology and sociobiology》2006,59(6):829-835
Sex allocation is an important reproductive decision for parents. However, it is often assumed that females have substantial
control over sex allocation decisions, and this is particularly true in haplodiploid insects, in which females apparently
determine sex by deciding whether to fertilise an egg (and produce a diploid daughter) or not (and produce a haploid son).
Mechanisms by which males may influence sex allocation are not so straightforward, and their potential influence on sex ratios
has been somewhat neglected. Here, we test whether males influence offspring sex ratios in the parasitoid wasp Nasonia vitripennis. We show that some of the variation in observed sex ratios can be attributed to males when comparing the affect of male strain
on sex ratio. We did not find among-male variation in sex ratio with a less powerful experiment using males from only one
strain or an effect of male mating environment. Our data suggest that males can influence female sex ratios and contribute
to the variation around the sex ratios optimal for females. However, the influence is not large, suggesting that females have
more influence on sex allocation than do males. We conclude by considering whether male influences on sex ratio represent
differences in male reproductive competence or deliberate attempts by males to increase their fitness by influencing daughter
production. 相似文献
16.
The host size model, an adaptive model for maternal manipulation of offspring sex ratio, was examined for the parasitoid
wasp Spalangia endius. In a Florida strain, as the model predicts, daughters emerged from larger hosts than sons, but only when mothers received
both small and large hosts simultaneously. The pattern appeared to result from the mother's ovipositional choice and not from
differential mortality of the sexes during development. If sex ratio manipulation is adaptive in the Florida strain, it appears
to be through a benefit to daughters of developing on large hosts rather than through a benefit to sons of developing on small
hosts. Both female and male parasitoids were larger when they developed on larger hosts. For females, developing on a larger
host (1) increased offspring production, except for the largest hosts, (2) increased longevity, (3) lengthened development,
and (4) had no effect on wing loading. For males, development on a larger host had no effect on any measure of male fitness
– mating success, longevity, development duration, or wing loading. In contrast, a strain from India showed no difference
in the size of hosts from which daughters versus sons emerged, although both female and male parasitoids were larger when
they developed on larger hosts. These results together with previous studies of Spalangia reveal no consistent connection between host-size-dependent sex ratio and host-size-dependent parasitoid size among strains
of S. endius or among species of Spalangia.
Received: 28 October 1998 / Received in revised form: 20 May 1999 / Accepted: 30 May 1999 相似文献
17.
Colony level sex allocation in a polygynous and polydomous ant 总被引:2,自引:0,他引:2
The colony-level sex allocation pattern of eusocial Hymenoptera has attracted much attention in recent studies of evolutionary biology. We conducted a theoretical and empirical study on this subject using the dolichoderine ant Technomyrmex albipes. This ant is unusual in having a dispersal polymorphism in both males and females. New colonies are founded by an alate female after mating with one or more alate males in the nuptial flight. In mature colonies, the reproductive role of the foundress queen is taken over by wingless offspring (supplementary reproductives). Mature colonies are extremely polygynous, with many wingless queens reproducing through intea-colonial mating with wingless males (inbreeding), and producing both alate and wingless sexuals. The population sex ratio of wingless sexuals was found to be extremely female-biased, while the population allocation ratio of alates was almost 1:1. This result suggests that there is local mate competition among wingless sexuals. A specific model for this extraordinary life cycle predicted that the asymmetry of regression relatedness (b
f/b
m) will disappear during the first few generations of wingless reproductives after the foundress dies. If colonies begin to produce alates after several wingless generations, this undermines the hypotheses for intercolonial sex ratio variation based on the relatedness asymmetry. We compared the magnitude of variation in sex ratios and other characteristics between two levels (within-colony-inter-nest and between-colony). Although there was considerable within-colony variation in all the examined characteristics, between-colony variances were always larger. This means that allocation is important at the whole-colony level, not that of the nest. There was no apparent correlation between the sex ratio of alates and colony size. Furthermore, partial correlation analysis indicated that neither the number of workers nor investment in alates explained the variation in the sex ratio of alates. The only factor which was significantly correlated with the sex ratio of alates was the sex ratio of wingless sexuals (a positive correlation). We conclude that both the alate and wingless sex ratios may be influenced by a common primary sex ratio at the egg stage, the variance of which may have genetic components. In the wingless sexuals, partial correlation analysis indicated that colony size and the number of workers explained the sex allocation ratio. The number of wingless females was strongly (positively) correlated with the total investment in wingless sexuals, while the number of males showed no such correlation. There is, however, no convincing explanation for the variation in sex allocation ratio of wingless sexuals, because the estimates of investment in wingless males may have a large sampling error.
Correspondence to: K. Tsuji 相似文献
18.
There is growing evidence that the sex ratios of wild vertebrate populations are determined by mechanisms that are directly
influenced by environmental characteristics. The Trivers–Willard (TWH) and extrinsic modification (EMH) hypotheses postulate
differing determinants of mammalian offspring sex ratios. TWH states that mothers allocate resources according to their current
condition and sex-specific offspring costs. EMH states that environmental forces that affect maternal condition determine
offspring sex ratios, independently of maternal tactics of sex-biased allocation. We statistically assessed support for each
of these hypotheses using long-term life histories of the allied rock-wallaby, Petrogale assimilis; a continuously breeding, polygynous, weakly dimorphic marsupial. We showed that birth sex ratios were equal and independent
of maternal and environmental conditions. However, secondary sex ratios were male-biased under good environmental conditions
and for high quality mothers or mothers in good condition. Sex differences in offspring survival contributed to these biases:
(1) environmental conditions strongly influenced survival to pouch emergence (in support of EMH) and (2) maternal quality
affected survival to the end of maternal care (in support of TWH). Environmental effects on survival were more important than
maternal factors over the entire period of maternal care and contributed most to male-biased sex ratios at pouch emergence.
In contrast, maternal mass was the best predictor of sex ratios at the end of maternal care—the life history stage where offspring
body mass differed between the sexes. 相似文献
19.
Environmental effects on sex allocation are common, yet the evolutionary significance of these effects remains poorly understood.
Environmental effects might influence parents, such that their condition directly influences sex allocation by altering the
relative benefits of producing sons versus daughters. Alternatively, the environment might influence the offspring themselves,
such that the conditions they find themselves in influence their contribution to parental fitness. In both cases, parents
might be selected to bias their sex ratio according to the prevailing environmental conditions. Here, we consider sex allocation
in the citrus mealybug Planococcus citri, a species with an unusual genetic system in which paternal genes are lost from the germline in males. We test environmental
factors that may influence either female condition directly (rearing temperature and food restriction) or that may be used
as cues of the future environment (age at mating). Using cytological techniques to obtain primary sex ratios, we show that
high temperature, older age at mating and starvation all affect sex allocation, resulting in female-biased sex ratios. However,
the effect of temperature is rather weak, and food restriction appears to be strongly associated with reduced longevity and
a truncation of the usual schedule of male and offspring production across a female’s reproductive lifetime. Instead, facultative
sex allocation seems most convincingly affected by age at mating, supporting previous work that suggests that social interactions
experienced by adult P. citri females are used when allocating sex. Our results highlight that, even within one species, different aspects of the environment
may have conflicting effects on sex allocation. 相似文献
20.
Sex allocation theory predicts that female birds with high-quality mates will benefit from producing more sons, since sons
will inherit their father’s superior traits and enjoy a great reproductive success, whereas females with low-quality mates
will benefit from producing more daughters, since the variance in reproductive success among daughters is typically lower.
The male attractiveness hypothesis may apply to extra-pair paternity (EPP) because socially monogamous females routinely mate
with higher quality males outside the pair bond. We test these predictions using the Tibetan ground tit (Pseudopodoces humilis), a sexually monomorphic, socially monogamous, facultatively cooperative breeder. There was greater variation in actual reproductive
success among males than females due to EPP. An excess of sons was detected for bi-parental (i.e., non-cooperative) broods
wherein EPP was mainly sired by bi-parental males. The pattern was attributed to male-biased sex ratios produced for both
EPP and within-pair offspring within the same broods. The reason for the latter case might be a random allocation of more
offspring to sons by the potentially EPP-exposed females that have an inability to control fertilization by specific males.
In cooperative broods where EPP mostly resulted from within-group helpers of presumed low-quality, as indicated by their failure
in acquiring a social mate, there was a non-significant tendency for EPP offspring to be daughters and for within-pair offspring
in the same broods to be unbiased. These results support the EPP-related male attractiveness hypothesis especially in terms
of the overproduction of sons. Offspring produced through quasi-parasitism was unbiased towards either sex, suggesting a weak
female choiceness with respect to the quality of host males. 相似文献