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Maternal nutrition and the sex ratio at birth

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MANY experiments on laboratory animals have shown that the nutrition of the dam can affect both litter size and viability. An early study indicated that breeding pairs of rats fed a poor diet also had an altered sex ratio in their offspring1, but no more precise nutritional studies of this have been made. Nutritional factors have not been considered amongst the determinants of the sex ratio at birth.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nuffield Institute of Comparative Medicine, Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London, NW1 4RY

    J. P. W. RIVERS & M. A. CRAWFORD

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  1. J. P. W. RIVERS
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  2. M. A. CRAWFORD
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RIVERS, J., CRAWFORD, M. Maternal nutrition and the sex ratio at birth. Nature 252, 297–298 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1038/252297a0

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