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The Bees Do It, but What About the Birds? Evidence for Sex Ratio Adjustment in Birds

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Book cover Choosing Sexes

Part of the book series: Fascinating Life Sciences ((FLS))

Abstract

In birds, the female is responsible for determining the sexes of her offspring, and she accomplishes this by donating either a W or a Z chromosome to the egg. There is now a large body of evidence that female birds can adjust which sex chromosome the eggs receive in response to the social and/or environmental conditions surrounding them. In this chapter, I highlight the many factors that have been shown to influence avian sex ratios and highlight the need for a multipronged approach incorporating multiple life history traits when attempting to understand the adaptive significance of sex allocation in birds.

At our zoo, to adjust sex ratios, we must currently perform in ovo sexing and avoid incubating eggs of the undesired sex, since we do not euthanize birds post hatch for management. This solution is not ideal if the species is threatened/endangered or genetically valuable

Tom Jensen, Senior Scientist at the San Diego Zoo

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  1. Department of Poultry Science, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA

    Kristen J. Navara

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Navara, K.J. (2018). The Bees Do It, but What About the Birds? Evidence for Sex Ratio Adjustment in Birds. In: Choosing Sexes. Fascinating Life Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71271-0_5

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