Sex ratio elasticity influences the selection of sex ratio strategy
| Autor: | Yaotang Li, Ya-Qiang Wang, Zhanshan Sam Ma, Rui-Wu Wang |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
0301 basic medicine Price elasticity of demand Male Multidisciplinary Ecology Biology 010603 evolutionary biology 01 natural sciences Models Biological Article 03 medical and health sciences 030104 developmental biology Statistics Animals Female Sex Ratio Elasticity (economics) Sex ratio |
| Zdroj: | Scientific Reports |
| DOI: | 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2166 |
| Popis: | There are three sex ratio strategies (SRS) in nature—male-biased sex ratio, female-biased sex ratio and, equal sex ratio depending on the proportion of male offspring being greater than, less than, or equal to ½. The problem was already noted in Darwin’s (1859) “Origin of Species,” and it was R. A. Fisher (1930) who first explained why most species in nature display a sex ratio of ½. Consequent SRS theories such as Hamilton’s (1967) local mate competition (LMC) and Clark’s (1978) local resource competition (LRC) separately explained the observed deviations from the seemingly universal 1:1 ratio. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is not yet a unified theory that accounts for the mechanisms of the three SRS. Here, we introduce the price elasticity theory in economics to define sex ratio elasticity (SRE), and present an analytical model that derives three SRSs based on the following assumption: simultaneously existing competitions for both resources and mates influence the level of SRE in both sexes differently. Consequently, it is the difference (between two sexes) in the level of their sex ratio elasticity that leads to three different SRS. Our analytical results demonstrate that the elasticity-based model not only reveals a highly plausible mechanism that explains the evolution of SRS in nature, but also offers a novel framework for unifying two major classical theories (i.e., LMC & LRC) in the field of SRS research. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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