Evolutionary transitions between mechanisms of sex determination in vertebrates - PubMed (original) (raw)
Evolutionary transitions between mechanisms of sex determination in vertebrates
Alexander E Quinn et al. Biol Lett. 2011.
Abstract
Sex in many organisms is a dichotomous phenotype--individuals are either male or female. The molecular pathways underlying sex determination are governed by the genetic contribution of parents to the zygote, the environment in which the zygote develops or interaction of the two, depending on the species. Systems in which multiple interacting influences or a continuously varying influence (such as temperature) determines a dichotomous outcome have at least one threshold. We show that when sex is viewed as a threshold trait, evolution in that threshold can permit novel transitions between genotypic and temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD) and remarkably, between male (XX/XY) and female (ZZ/ZW) heterogamety. Transitions are possible without substantive genotypic innovation of novel sex-determining mutations or transpositions, so that the master sex gene and sex chromosome pair can be retained in ZW-XY transitions. We also show that evolution in the threshold can explain all observed patterns in vertebrate TSD, when coupled with evolution in embryonic survivorship limits.
Figures
Figure 1.
Transitions between sex-determining mechanisms caused by shifts in the sex-determining threshold. Black curves, magnitude of the regulatory signal for male development (arbitrarily scaled); dashed blue line, threshold value for male development; dashed red line, nest site distribution; vertical red lines, upper _T_H and lower _T_L thermal limits for embryo viability; solid blue line, population thermal reaction norm for sex ratio. (a_–_c) Effect of increasing the threshold for male development; (d_–_f) the effect of decreasing the threshold.
Figure 2.
Evolutionary continua of sex-determining systems for populations with thermosensitivity in (a) male or (b) female differentiation. Red lines, threshold values at transition points between sex-determining systems; coloured bars, relative genotypic frequencies at equilibrium. Viability limits = −1.0, 1.0; nest survival = 95%; initial genotypic frequencies ZZ : ZW : WW = 1 : 1 : 1.
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