IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v451y2008i7178d10.1038_nature06519.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The adaptive significance of temperature-dependent sex determination in a reptile

Author

Listed:
  • D. A. Warner

    (School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia
    Present address: Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA.)

  • R. Shine

    (School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia)

Abstract

Sex determined by degrees In mammals and birds, sex is determined by genotype, at fertilization. But many reptiles, hedge their bets, determining the sex of an individual by interaction with the environment, typically temperature. Thirty years ago, Eric Charnov and James Bull (Nature 266, 828–830; 1977) speculated that environmental sex determination will be favoured by selection if it could be shown that different temperature regimes maximized reproductive fitness for each sex. Until now it has not been confirmed, partly because of the difficulty of setting up a 'control' experiment in which the 'wrong' sex is produced at a given temperature. Hormone treatments have been used to overcome this difficulty, and Daniel Warner and Rick Shine now confirm, in a species of Australian lizard, that the Charnov/Bull model is correct.

Suggested Citation

  • D. A. Warner & R. Shine, 2008. "The adaptive significance of temperature-dependent sex determination in a reptile," Nature, Nature, vol. 451(7178), pages 566-568, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:451:y:2008:i:7178:d:10.1038_nature06519
    DOI: 10.1038/nature06519
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature06519
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature06519?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sylvain Dubey & Richard Shine, 2011. "Predicting the effects of climate change on reproductive fitness of an endangered montane lizard, Eulamprus leuraensis (Scincidae)," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 107(3), pages 531-547, August.
    2. Parrott, Amy & David Logan, J., 2010. "Effects of temperature variation on TSD in turtle (C. picta) populations," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 221(10), pages 1378-1393.
    3. Boyle, Maria & Schwanz, Lisa & Hone, Jim & Georges, Arthur, 2016. "Dispersal and climate warming determine range shift in model reptile populations," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 328(C), pages 34-43.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:451:y:2008:i:7178:d:10.1038_nature06519. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.