Download or read book The Theory of Sex Allocation MPB 18 Volume 18 written by Eric L. Charnov and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first comprehensive treatment of sex allocation from the standpoint of modern evolutionary theory. It shows how the determination of sex ratio, resource allocation to sperm versus egg within simultaneous hermaphroditism, and the evolution of sex reversal can he explained as examples of a single process. The genetical theory, developed mostly with graphical arguments, also specifies when hermaphroditism and dioecy are themselves evolutionary stable. The work balances theory with field and laboratory research, providing critical tests of the theory by empirical studies of sex ratio in parasitoid wasps and mites, sex reversal in shrimp and coral reef fish, and allocation of resources to pollen versus seeds in higher plants. In addition, the author oilers an encyclopedic review of the field and laboratory work of other scientists, reviews many as yet untested hypotheses in sex allocation, and points toward numerous plant and animal systems that hold promise for future tests.
Download or read book Sex Allocation written by Stuart West and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-09-28 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent decades have witnessed an explosion of theoretical and empirical studies of sex allocation, transforming how we understand the allocation of resources to male and female reproduction in vertebrates, invertebrates, protozoa, and plants. In this landmark book, Stuart West synthesizes the vast literature on sex allocation, providing the conceptual framework the field has been lacking and demonstrating how sex-allocation studies can shed light on broader questions in evolutionary and behavioral biology. West clarifies fundamental misconceptions in the application of theory to empirical data. He examines the field's successes and failures, and describes the research areas where much important work is yet to be done. West reveals how a shared underlying theoretical framework unites findings of sex-ratio variation across a huge range of life forms, from malarial parasites and hermaphroditic worms to sex-changing fish and mammals. He shows how research on sex allocation has been central to many critical questions and controversies in evolutionary and behavioral biology, and he argues that sex-allocation research serves as a key testing ground for different theoretical approaches and can help resolve debates about social evolution, parent-offspring conflict, genomic conflict, and levels of selection. Certain to become the defining book on the subject for the next generation of researchers, Sex Allocation explains why the study of sex allocation provides an ideal model system for advancing our understanding of the constraints on adaptation among all living things in the natural world.
Download or read book Sex Ratios written by Ian Hardy and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sex ratios, the proportions of males and females in any given species, are important in evolutionary and behavioural ecology. This volume explores the context to and methods for many aspects of research on sex ratios, and will be an indispensable reference for all those working in this area.
Download or read book Gender and Sexual Dimorphism in Flowering Plants written by Monica A. Geber and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by the leading experts in the field, this book examines the evolutionary advantages of gender dimorphism and sexual dimorphism in flowering plants. Divided into three sections: the first introduces readers to the tremendous variety of breeding systems and their evolution in plants and sets the stage for a consideration of the evolution of dimorphism in reproductive and non-reproductive characters. The second section deals with the evolution of secondary sexual characters, including the theory related to the evolution of sexual dimorphism and its empirical patterns, while the last section deals with the genetics of gender expression and of secondary sexual characters.
Download or read book Foundations of Social Evolution written by Steven A. Frank and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1998-07-21 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He unites these with the best of economic thought: a clear theory of model formation and comparative statics, the development of simple methods for analyzing complex problems, and notions of information and rationality. Using this unique, multidisciplinary approach, Frank makes major advances in understanding the foundations of social evolution.
Download or read book Sexual Conflict written by Göran Arnqvist and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2005-07-25 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book demonstrates that , despite a shared genome, conflicts between interacting males and females are ubiquitous, and that selection in the two sexes is continuously pulling this genome in opposite directions." --Cover.
Download or read book Sexual Coercion in Primates and Humans written by Martin N. Muller and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-19 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents extensive field research and analysis to evaluate sexual coercion in a range of species—including all of the great apes and humans—and to clarify its role in shaping social relationships among males, among females, and between the sexes.
Download or read book Sexual Selection written by Malte Andersson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-31 with total page 621 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bright colors, enlarged fins, feather plumes, song, horns, antlers, and tusks are often highly sex dimorphic. Why have males in many animals evolved more conspicuous ornaments, signals, and weapons than females? How can such traits evolve although they may reduce male survival? Such questions prompted Darwin's perhaps most scientifically controversial idea--the theory of sexual selection. It still challenges researchers today as they try to understand how competition for mates can favor the variety of sex-dimorphic traits. Reviewing theoretical and empirical work in this very active field, Malte Andersson, a leading contributor himself, provides a major up-to-date synthesis of sexual selection. The author describes the theory and its recent development; examines models, methods, and empirical tests; and identifies many unsolved problems. Among the topics discussed are the selection and evolution of mating preferences; relations between sexual selection and speciation; constraints on sexual selection; and sex differences in signals, body size, and weapons. The rapidly growing study of sexual selection in plants is also reviewed. This volume will interest students, teachers, and researchers in behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology.
Download or read book Plant Resource Allocation written by Fakhri A. Bazzaz and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 1997-07-23 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plant Resource Allocation is an exploration of the latest insights into the theory and functioning of plant resource allocation. An international team of physiological ecologists has prepared chapters devoted to the fundamental topics of resource allocation. - Comprehensive coverage of all aspects of resource allocation in plants - All contributors are leaders in their respective fields
Download or read book Hermaphroditism written by John C. Avise and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2011-03-18 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While it is true that members of most sexually reproducing species can be defined as either male or female, those who belong to the rest of the biological world are not so simply understood. Hermaphroditic creatures reproduce both as male and as female individuals, providing a fascinating glimpse into alternative sexual practices in nature and their ecological and evolutionary successes and failures. Eloquently written by an award-winning biologist and pioneer in molecular ecology, this primer on hermaphroditism traces the phenomenon throughout Earth's myriad species, accounting for the adaptive significance of alternative sexual systems. Accessible and richly illustrated, the text maps the evolutionary origins of hermaphroditism, as well as its historical instances and fictional representations, underscoring the relevance of dual sexuality to our biological, intellectual, and cultural making. John C. Avise describes the genetics, ecology, phylogeny, and natural history of hermaphroditic plants, fish, and invertebrate animals and details organisms that either reproduce simultaneously as male and female or switch routinely between one sex and the other. Filled with surprising creatures and compelling revelations, this textbook stands alone in its clear yet comprehensive treatment of hermaphroditism and its unique challenge to the supremacy of separate sexes.
Download or read book Reproductive Allocation in Plants written by Edward Reekie and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2011-05-04 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much effort has been devoted to developing theories to explain the wide variation we observe in reproductive allocation among environments. Reproductive Allocation in Plants describes why plants differ in the proportion of their resources that they allocate to reproduction and looks into the various theories. This book examines the ecological and evolutionary explanations for variation in plant reproductive allocation from the perspective of the underlying physiological mechanisms controlling reproduction and growth. An international team of leading experts have prepared chapters summarizing the current state of the field and offering their views on the factors determining reproductive allocation in plants. This will be a valuable resource for senior undergraduate students, graduate students and researchers in ecology, plant ecophysiology, and population biology. - 8 outstanding chapters dedicated to the evolution and ecology of variation in plant reproductive allocation - Written by an international team of leading experts in the field - Provides enough background information to make it accessible to senior undergraduate students - Includes over 60 figures and 29 tables
Download or read book Biology of Sex written by Alex Mills and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text explains the biological aspects of human sex by using direct and intriguing comparisons with the many variations in sexual systems among non-human organisms.
Download or read book Consumer Resource Dynamics written by William W. Murdoch and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-15 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite often violent fluctuations in nature, species extinction is rare. California red scale, a potentially devastating pest of citrus, has been suppressed for fifty years in California to extremely low yet stable densities by its controlling parasitoid. Some larch budmoth populations undergo extreme cycles; others never cycle. In Consumer-Resource Dynamics, William Murdoch, Cherie Briggs, and Roger Nisbet use these and numerous other biological examples to lay the groundwork for a unifying theory applicable to predator-prey, parasitoid-host, and other consumer-resource interactions. Throughout, the focus is on how the properties of real organisms affect population dynamics. The core of the book synthesizes and extends the authors' own models involving insect parasitoids and their hosts, and explores in depth how consumer species compete for a dynamic resource. The emerging general consumer-resource theory accounts for how consumers respond to differences among individuals in the resource population. From here the authors move to other models of consumer-resource dynamics and population dynamics in general. Consideration of empirical examples, key concepts, and a necessary review of simple models is followed by examination of spatial processes affecting dynamics, and of implications for biological control of pest organisms. The book establishes the coherence and broad applicability of consumer-resource theory and connects it to single-species dynamics. It closes by stressing the theory's value as a hierarchy of models that allows both generality and testability in the field.
Download or read book The Evolution of Sex Determination written by Leo Beukeboom and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-06-12 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sexual reproduction is a fundamental aspect of life. It is defined by the occurrence of meiosis and the fusion of two gametes of different sexes or mating types. Sex-determination mechanisms are responsible for the sexual fate and development of sexual characteristics in an organism, be it a unicellular alga, a plant, or an animal. In many cases, sex determination is genetic: males and females have different alleles or different genes that specify their sexual morphology. In animals, this is often accompanied by chromosomal differences. In other cases, sex may be determined by environmental (e.g. temperature) or social variables (e.g. the size of an organism relative to other members of its population). Surprisingly, sex-determination mechanisms are not evolutionarily conserved but are bewilderingly diverse and appear to have had rapid turnover rates during evolution. Evolutionary biologists continue to seek a solution to this conundrum. What drives the surprising dynamics of such a fundamental process that always leads to the same outcome: two sex types, male and female? The answer is complex but the ongoing genomic revolution has already greatly increased our knowledge of sex-determination systems and sex chromosomes in recent years. This novel book presents and synthesizes our current understanding, and clearly shows that sex-determination evolution will remain a dynamic field of future research. The Evolution of Sex Determination is an advanced, research level text suitable for graduate students and researchers in genetics, developmental biology, and evolution.
Download or read book Infanticide written by Glenn Hausfater and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-12 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent field studies of a variety of mammalian species reveal a surprisingly high frequency of infanticide - the killing of unweaned or otherwise maternally dependent offspring. Similarly, studies of birds, fish, amphibians, and invertebrates demonstrate egg and larval mortality in these species, a phenomenon directly analogous to infanticide in mammals. In this collection, Hausfater and Hrdy draw together work on animal and human infanticide and place these studies in a broad evolutionary and comparative perspective.Infanticide presents the theoretical background and taxonomic distribution of infanticide, infanticide in nonhuman primates, infanticide in rodents, and infanticide in humans. It examines closely sex allocation and sex ratio theory, surveys the phylogeny of mammalian interbirth intervals, and reviews data on sources of egg and larval mortality in a variety of invertebrate and lower vertebrate species. Dealing with infanticide in nonhuman primates, two chapters critically examine data on infanticide in langurs and its broader theoretical implications. By reviewing sources of infant mortality in populations of small mammals and new laboratory analyses of the causes and consequences of infanticide, this work explores such issues as the ontogeny of infanticide, proximate cues of infants and females which elicit infanticidal behavior in males, the genetical basis of infanticide, and the hormonal determinants.Hausfater and Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, through their selection of materials for this book, evaluate the frequency, causes, and function of infanticide. Historical, ethnographic, and recent data on infanticide are surveyed. "Infanticide" summarizes current research on the evolutionary origins and proximate causation of infanticide in animals and man. As such it will be indispensable reading for anthropologists and behavioral biologists as well as ecologists, psychologists, demographers, and epidemiologists.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Sexual Conflict in Humans written by Todd K. Shackelford and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-04 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sexual conflict -- what happens when the reproductive interests of males and females diverge -- occurs in all sexually reproducing species, including humans. The Oxford Handbook of Sexual Conflict in Humans is the first volume to assemble the latest theoretical and empirical work on sexual conflict in humans from the leading scholars in the fields of evolutionary psychology and anthropology. Following an introductory section that outlines theory and research on sexual conflict in humans and non-humans, ensuing sections discuss human sexual conflict and its manifestations before and during mating. Chapters in these sections address a range of factors topics and factors, including: - Sexual coercion, jealousy, and partner violence and killing - The ovulatory cycle, female orgasm, and sperm competition - Chemical warfare between ejaculates and female reproductive tracts Chapters in the next section address issues of sexual conflict after the birth of a child. These chapters address sexual conflict as a function of the local sex ratio, men's functional (if unconscious) concern with paternal resemblance to a child, men's reluctance to pay child support, and mate expulsion as a tactic to end a relationship. The handbook's concluding section includes a chapter that considers the impact of sexual conflict on a grander scale, notably on cultural, political, and religious systems. Addressing sexual conflict at its molecular and macroscopic levels, The Oxford Handbook of Sexual Conflict in Humans is a fascinating resource for the study of intersexual behavior.
Download or read book Categories We Live by written by Ásta and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are women, we are men. We are refugees, single mothers, people with disabilities, and queers. We belong to social categories and they frame our actions, self-understanding, and opportunities. But what are social categories? How are they created and sustained? How does one come to belong to them? sta approaches these questions through analytic feminist metaphysics. Her theory of social categories centers on an answer to the question: what is it for a feature of an individual to be socially meaningful? In a careful, probing investigation, she reveals how social categories are created and sustained and demonstrates their tendency to oppress through examples from current events. To this end, she offers an account of just what social construction is and how it works in a range of examples that problematize the categories of sex, gender, and race in particular. The main idea is that social categories are conferred upon people. sta introduces a 'conferralist' framework in order to articulate a theory of social meaning, social construction, and most importantly, of the construction of sex, gender, race, disability, and other social categories.
