Female philopatry in a heterogeneous environment: ordinary conditions leading to extraordinary ESS sex ratios.
BACKGROUND
We use a simulation-based model to study the impact of female philopatry and heterogeneity of habitat quality on the evolution of primary sex ratio.


RESULTS
We show that these conditions may lead to strongly biased ESS habitat-dependent sex ratios, under two kinds of density-dependent population regulation. ESS sex ratios are always biased towards females in good habitats, towards males in poor habitats, and are generally equilibrated considering the whole population. Noticeably, the predicted bias of sex ratio usually increases with decreasing female philopatry.


CONCLUSIONS
The selection forces responsible for these results are fully described. This study provides a new perspective on the evolutionary significance of temperature sex determination. We discuss the case of turtles by comparing our theoretical results with field observations.
Hulin
Vincent
V
Univ Paris-Sud, CNRS, AgroParisTech, Laboratoire Ecologie, Systématique et Evolution, UMR 8079, Bâtiment 362, Orsay, F-91405, France. vincent.hulin@u-psud.fr
Guillon
Jean-Michel
JM
D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D008954:Models, Biological; D009425:Nesting Behavior; D011156:Population Density; D012098:Reproduction; D012744:Sex Ratio; D014426:Turtles / Q000502:physiology*