Translocation reverses birth sex ratio bias depending on its timing during gestation: evidence for the action of two sex-allocation mechanisms.
Many sex allocation mechanisms are proposed but rarely have researchers considered and tested more than one at a time. Four facultative birth sex ratio (BSR) adjustment mechanisms are considered: (1) hormone-induced conception bias; (2) sex-differential embryo death from excess glucose metabolism; (3) sex-differential embryo death from embryo-uterine developmental asynchrony; and (4) pregnancy hormone suppression and resource deprivation. All mechanisms could be switched on by the corticoadrenal stress response. A total of 104 female rhinoceroses (Rhinocerotidae), translocated from 1961 to 2004 at different stages of gestation or conceived soon after arrival in captivity, were used to test for a reversal in BSR bias as evidence for the action of multiple sex-allocation mechanisms. Translocation induced a statistically significant BSR reversal between early gestation (86% male births from 0 to 0.19 gestation) and mid-gestation (38% male from 0.2 to 0.79 gestation). Captivity also induced a strongly male-biased (67% male) BSR for conceptions after arrival in captivity. The results indicate the action of at least two sex-allocation mechanisms operating in sequence, confirm the important role of sex-differential embryo death around implantation and of stress in sex allocation, and lend support to suggestions that sex-differential glucose metabolism by the preimplantation embryo likely plays a role in facultative BSR adjustment.
Linklater
W L
WL
Centre for Biodiversity and Restoration Ecology, School of Biological Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington 140, New Zealand. wayne.linklater@vuw.ac.nz
D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D005306:Fertilization / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D010527:Perissodactyla / Q000502:physiology*; D011247:Pregnancy / Q000502:physiology*; D012732:Sex Determination Analysis; D019849:Sex Determination Processes; D012744:Sex Ratio; D013315:Stress, Psychological; D013997:Time Factors