Sex ratio project
A number of studies have suggested that the sex of the offspring depends on environmental or parental traits. This phenomenon is called sex ratio adjustment. It is of enormous interest to workers of a diverse range of fields including poultry industry, conservation biology and evolutionary ecology. According to the relevant hypotheses, sex ratio adjustment is adaptive that is parents are expected to overproduce the sex that provide larger fitness benefit. However, only very few studies investigated whether this is true. We try to investigate this issue in two bird species and humans. We also investigate how infidelity (a phenomenon frequently observed even in monogamous animals) affects the evolutionary benefit of sex ratio adjustment. By reanalysing published data, we also try to investigate why results on sex ratio adjustment differ between populations.
The project was supported by the K120249 grant from the National Research, Development and Innovation Office.
Publications:
Sarkadi, F., Szász, E., Rosivall, B. (2024) Socioeconomic status and sex ratio in the contemporary Hungarian population. Evolutionary Human Sciences 6:e38. (DOI: 10.1017/ehs.2024.39)
Gyarmathy, H., Kopena, R., Sarkadi, F., Szöllősi, E., Szász, E., Török, J., Rosivall, B. (2024): Are brood sex ratios adaptive? – The effect of exeperimentally altered brood sex ratios on parental feeding behaviour. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 78:74. (DOI: 10.1007/s00265-024-03490-3)
Szász E., Sarkadi F., Szöllősi E., Kopena R., Török J., Rosivall B. (2023) Are brood sex ratios adaptive?—The effect of experimentally altered brood sex ratio on nestling growth, mortality and recruitment. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 36(1):156-168 (DOI: 10.1111/jeb14118)
Szász, E., Garamszegi, L.Z., Rosivall, B. (2019). What is behind the variation in mate quality dependent sex ratio adjustment? – A meta-analysis. Oikos 128:1-12.
Szász, E., Szöllősi, E., Hegyi, G., Török, J., Rosivall, B. (2017). Rearing conditions have long-term sex-specific fitness consequences in the collared flycatcher. Behavioral Ecology 28:717-723.
Researchers working on the project:
- Balázs Rosivall (PI, contact person)
- Eszter Szöllősi
- Eszter Szász
- Renáta Kopena
Collaborators:
- Tamás Bereczkei
- András Láng
PhD students working on the project:
- Fanni Sarkadi
- Helga Gyarmathy