MARBEC, Ifremer, IRD, Univ Montpellier, CNRS, Palavas-Les-Flots, France; Equal contributions.
Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, UMR CNRS 5553, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, Le Bourget du Lac, France; Equal contributions.
Trends Ecol Evol. 2019 Jul;34(7):628-640. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2019.02.012. Epub 2019 Apr 2.
The impact of early stress on juvenile development has intrigued scientists for decades, but the adaptive significance of such effects remains an ongoing debate. This debate has largely ignored some characteristics of the offspring, such as their sex, despite strong evolutionary and demographic implications of sex-ratio variation. We review recent studies that examine associations between glucocorticoids (GCs), the main class of stress hormones, and offspring sex. Whereas exposure to GCs at around the time of sex determination in fish consistently produces males, the extent and direction of sex-ratio bias in response to stress vary in reptiles, birds, and mammals. We propose proximate and ultimate explanations for most of these trends.
早期压力对青少年发育的影响令科学家们着迷了数十年，但这种影响的适应意义仍然是一个持续的争论。这场争论在很大程度上忽略了后代的一些特征，例如他们的性别，尽管性别比例变化具有强烈的进化和人口学意义。我们回顾了最近的研究，这些研究检查了糖皮质激素（GCs）与后代性别的关联，GCs 是主要的应激激素类别。尽管在鱼类的性别决定时暴露于 GCs 会一致产生雄性，但在爬行动物、鸟类和哺乳动物中，对压力的性别比例偏差的程度和方向有所不同。我们提出了这些趋势的最接近和最终解释。
