Department of Animal Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), PO Box 50, 6700 AB Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Gen Comp Endocrinol. 2012 Mar 1;176(1):1-8. doi: 10.1016/j.ygcen.2011.12.021. Epub 2011 Dec 27.
Seasonal timing is studied by ecologists and physiologists alike and it is now widely recognized that further integration of these fields is needed for a full understanding of phenology. This is especially true in the light of the impact of global climate change on living organisms. In studies of avian reproduction, one obstacle to this integration is that ecologists and physiologists do not allocate their research efforts equally to males and females. The physiological orchestration of breeding stages has been studied almost exclusively in males, while in avian ecology and evolutionary biology females are more often considered. This sex bias has severe implications: sexes differ in the way they use external cues to organize their life cycles, but often cue in on each other's physiology and behavior. The simultaneous investigation of both males and females within single studies is thus essential. In this review, I begin by illustrating the sex-bias in studies and attempt to explain its origin. I then provide a number of examples in which focusing on a single sex would have resulted in misleading conclusions. Finally, I review some classical studies of female reproductive physiology that have promoted and developed research on the "forgotten-sex".
季节定时性是生态学家和生理学家都在研究的课题，现在人们普遍认识到，要全面了解物候学，需要进一步整合这两个领域。在考虑到全球气候变化对生物的影响的情况下，这一点尤其正确。在鸟类繁殖的研究中，这种整合的一个障碍是，生态学家和生理学家并没有平等地投入研究努力来研究雄性和雌性。繁殖阶段的生理协调几乎完全在雄性中进行研究，而在鸟类生态学和进化生物学中，雌性则更受关注。这种性别偏见具有严重的影响：性别不同，它们利用外部线索来组织生命周期的方式也不同，但通常会相互影响对方的生理和行为。因此，在单一研究中同时调查雄性和雌性是至关重要的。在这篇综述中，我首先说明研究中的性别偏见，并试图解释其起源。然后，我提供了一些例子，如果只关注单一性别，就会得出误导性的结论。最后，我回顾了一些经典的雌性生殖生理学研究，这些研究促进和发展了对“被遗忘的性别”的研究。
