Kanazawa Satoshi
Interdisciplinary Institute of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK.
J Theor Biol. 2005 Aug 21;235(4):583-90. doi: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2005.02.010. Epub 2005 Mar 31.
This paper proposes the generalized Trivers-Willard hypothesis (gTWH), which suggests that parents who possess any heritable trait which increases male reproductive success at a greater rate than female reproductive success in a given environment will have a higher-than-expected offspring sex ratio, and parents who possess any heritable trait which increases female reproductive success at a greater rate than male reproductive success in a given environment will have a lower-than-expected offspring sex ratio. Since body size (height and weight) is a highly heritable trait which increases male (but not female) reproductive success, the paper hypothesizes that bigger and taller parents have more sons. The analysis of both surviving children and recent pregnancies among respondents of the National Child Development Survey and the British Cohort Survey largely supports the hypothesis.
本文提出了广义特里弗斯-威拉德假说（gTWH），该假说认为，在特定环境中，拥有任何可遗传性状且该性状使雄性繁殖成功率高于雌性繁殖成功率的父母，其后代性别比将高于预期；而在特定环境中，拥有任何可遗传性状且该性状使雌性繁殖成功率高于雄性繁殖成功率的父母，其后代性别比将低于预期。由于体型（身高和体重）是一种高度可遗传的性状，它能提高雄性（而非雌性）的繁殖成功率，因此本文假设体型更大、更高的父母会生育更多儿子。对全国儿童发展调查和英国队列调查的受访者中存活子女及近期怀孕情况的分析，在很大程度上支持了这一假说。
