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Dispersal and the sex ratio

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Abstract

It has been shown by Fisher that a 1:1 sex ratio should be evolutionary stable as there would otherwise be a frequency-dependent advantage to the rarer sex1. Hamilton pointed out that Fisher's argument depends on the assumption of population-wide random mating, and showed that a female-biased sex ratio was expected in a model in which mating occurred within small local subgroups before population-wide dispersal of mated females. We consider here the sex ratio under some other models of dispersal in a geographically structured population.

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References

  1. Fisher, R. A. The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (Oxford University Press, 1930).

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  2. Hamilton, W. D. Science 156, 477–488 (1967).

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  3. Taylor, P. D. & Bulmer, M. G. J. theor. Biol. (submitted).

  4. Maynard Smith, J. The Evolution of Sex (Cambridge University Press, 1978).

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  6. Clark, A. B. Science 201, 163–165 (1978).

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Bulmer, M., Taylor, P. Dispersal and the sex ratio. Nature 284, 448–449 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1038/284448a0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/284448a0

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