衰老亲代中偏向雄性的性别分配；一项针对长寿海鸟的纵向研究。
Male-biased sex allocation in ageing parents; a longitudinal study in a long-lived seabird.
作者信息
Vedder Oscar, Bouwhuis Sandra, Benito María M, Becker Peter H
机构信息
Institute of Avian Research 'Vogelwarte Helgoland', An der Vogelwarte 21, 26386, Wilhelmshaven, Germany
Institute of Avian Research 'Vogelwarte Helgoland', An der Vogelwarte 21, 26386, Wilhelmshaven, Germany.
出版信息
Biol Lett. 2016 Aug;12(8). doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0260.
Optimal sex allocation is frequency-dependent, but senescence may cause behaviour at old age to be suboptimal. We investigated whether sex allocation changes with parental age, using 16 years of data comprising more than 2500 molecularly sexed offspring of more than 600 known-age parents in common terns (Sterna hirundo), slightly sexually size-dimorphic seabirds. We decomposed parental age effects into within-individual change and sex allocation-associated selective (dis)appearance. Individual parents did not differ consistently in sex allocation, but offspring sex ratios at fledging changed from female- to male-biased as parents aged. Sex ratios at hatching were not related to parental age, suggesting sons to outperform daughters after hatching in broods of old parents. Our results call for the integration of sex allocation theory with theory on ageing and demography, as a change in sex allocation with age per se will cause the age structure of a population to affect the frequency-dependent benefits and the age-specific strength of selection on sex allocation.
最佳性别分配取决于频率，但衰老可能导致老年时的行为并非最优。我们利用16年的数据进行研究，这些数据包含了超过600只已知年龄的普通燕鸥（Sterna hirundo，一种体型略有性二态性的海鸟）的2500多只通过分子手段确定性别的后代，以此来探究性别分配是否会随着亲代年龄的变化而改变。我们将亲代年龄效应分解为个体内部变化和与性别分配相关的选择性（非）出现。个体亲代在性别分配上并没有持续的差异，但随着亲代年龄的增长，幼雏出飞时的后代性别比例从偏向雌性转变为偏向雄性。孵化时的性别比例与亲代年龄无关，这表明在老年亲代的巢中，儿子在孵化后比女儿表现更好。我们的研究结果呼吁将性别分配理论与衰老和人口统计学理论相结合，因为性别分配随年龄的变化本身将导致种群的年龄结构影响频率依赖的益处以及性别分配上年龄特异性的选择强度。
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