Why girls want to be boys.
The mechanisms by which sex is genetically determined are bewilderingly diverse and appear to change rapidly during evolution.(1) What makes the sex-determining process so prone to perturbations? Two recent articles(2,3) explore theoretically the role of genetic conflict in sex determination evolution. Both studies use the idea that selection on sex-determining genes may act differently in parents and in offspring and they suggest that the resulting conflict can drive changes in sex-determining mechanisms.
Beukeboom
L W
LW
Section Animal Ecology, Institute of Evolutionary and Ecological Sciences, University of Leiden, NL-2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands.
de Jong
T J
TJ
Pen
I
I
D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009154:Mutation; D012641:Selection, Genetic; D019849:Sex Determination Processes; D012744:Sex Ratio