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Extraordinary Sex Ratios: Cultural Effects on Ecological Consequences

We model sex-structured population dynamics to analyze pairwise competition between groups differing both genetically and culturally. A sex-ratio allele is expressed in the heterogametic sex only, so that assumptions of Fisher’s analysis do not apply. Sex-ratio evolution drives cultural evolution of...

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Autores principales: Molnár, Ferenc, Caraco, Thomas, Korniss, Gyorgy
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3428370/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22952669
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0043364
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author Molnár, Ferenc
Caraco, Thomas
Korniss, Gyorgy
author_facet Molnár, Ferenc
Caraco, Thomas
Korniss, Gyorgy
author_sort Molnár, Ferenc
collection PubMed
description We model sex-structured population dynamics to analyze pairwise competition between groups differing both genetically and culturally. A sex-ratio allele is expressed in the heterogametic sex only, so that assumptions of Fisher’s analysis do not apply. Sex-ratio evolution drives cultural evolution of a group-associated trait governing mortality in the homogametic sex. The two-sex dynamics under resource limitation induces a strong Allee effect that depends on both sex ratio and cultural trait values. We describe the resulting threshold, separating extinction from positive growth, as a function of female and male densities. When initial conditions avoid extinction due to the Allee effect, different sex ratios cannot coexist; in our model, greater female allocation always invades and excludes a lesser allocation. But the culturally transmitted trait interacts with the sex ratio to determine the ecological consequences of successful invasion. The invading female allocation may permit population persistence at self-regulated equilibrium. For this case, the resident culture may be excluded, or may coexist with the invader culture. That is, a single sex-ratio allele in females and a cultural dimorphism in male mortality can persist; a low-mortality resident trait is maintained by father-to-son cultural transmission. Otherwise, the successfully invading female allocation excludes the resident allele and culture and then drives the population to extinction via a shortage of males. Finally, we show that the results obtained under homogeneous mixing hold, with caveats, in a spatially explicit model with local mating and diffusive dispersal in both sexes.
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spelling pubmed-34283702012-09-05 Extraordinary Sex Ratios: Cultural Effects on Ecological Consequences Molnár, Ferenc Caraco, Thomas Korniss, Gyorgy PLoS One Research Article We model sex-structured population dynamics to analyze pairwise competition between groups differing both genetically and culturally. A sex-ratio allele is expressed in the heterogametic sex only, so that assumptions of Fisher’s analysis do not apply. Sex-ratio evolution drives cultural evolution of a group-associated trait governing mortality in the homogametic sex. The two-sex dynamics under resource limitation induces a strong Allee effect that depends on both sex ratio and cultural trait values. We describe the resulting threshold, separating extinction from positive growth, as a function of female and male densities. When initial conditions avoid extinction due to the Allee effect, different sex ratios cannot coexist; in our model, greater female allocation always invades and excludes a lesser allocation. But the culturally transmitted trait interacts with the sex ratio to determine the ecological consequences of successful invasion. The invading female allocation may permit population persistence at self-regulated equilibrium. For this case, the resident culture may be excluded, or may coexist with the invader culture. That is, a single sex-ratio allele in females and a cultural dimorphism in male mortality can persist; a low-mortality resident trait is maintained by father-to-son cultural transmission. Otherwise, the successfully invading female allocation excludes the resident allele and culture and then drives the population to extinction via a shortage of males. Finally, we show that the results obtained under homogeneous mixing hold, with caveats, in a spatially explicit model with local mating and diffusive dispersal in both sexes. Public Library of Science 2012-08-27 /pmc/articles/PMC3428370/ /pubmed/22952669 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0043364 Text en © 2012 Molnár et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Molnár, Ferenc
Caraco, Thomas
Korniss, Gyorgy
Extraordinary Sex Ratios: Cultural Effects on Ecological Consequences
title Extraordinary Sex Ratios: Cultural Effects on Ecological Consequences
title_full Extraordinary Sex Ratios: Cultural Effects on Ecological Consequences
title_fullStr Extraordinary Sex Ratios: Cultural Effects on Ecological Consequences
title_full_unstemmed Extraordinary Sex Ratios: Cultural Effects on Ecological Consequences
title_short Extraordinary Sex Ratios: Cultural Effects on Ecological Consequences
title_sort extraordinary sex ratios: cultural effects on ecological consequences
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3428370/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22952669
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0043364
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