Abstract
Reptiles exhibit a remarkable variety of mechanisms by which the sexual fate of developing individuals is decided, ranging from systems of extreme phenotypic plasticity dependent on incubation temperature (TSD) to others of extreme canalization under the control of sex chromosomes (GSD). Our understanding of the extent of this diversity is growing, as is the insight about its molecular basis (genetic and epigenetic). However, further research is still overdue to fully decipher the causes and consequences of the independent and frequent transitions between TSD and GSD in reptile lineages. For instance, theoretically, it may be expected that TSD lineages suffer higher extinction because TSD may result in highly biased sex ratios that are detrimental for population dynamics, while sex chromosomes may promote higher speciation rates. Yet, support from empirical studies is conflicting and instead, some evidence points to longevity as an important mediator for the evolution of sex-determining mechanisms. While much effort has been devoted to test whether TSD or GSD is adaptive in various lineages, one of the most exciting areas of inquiry today relates to the increasing reports of intermediate systems of sex determination in reptiles (GSD + TSD = GSD susceptible to thermally induced sex reversal) as they shed critical light on the constraints (or lack thereof) for the evolution of sex determination in this group. The flourish of genomic approaches applied to the study of sex determination along with the refinement of phylogenetic comparative methods are also enabling the reconstruction of the enigmatic micro- and macroevolutionary history of reptilian sex determination.
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This work was partially funded by NSF grants MCB 1244355 and IOS 1555999 to N.V.
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Valenzuela, N. (2018). Causes and Consequences of Evolutionary Transitions in the Level of Phenotypic Plasticity of Reptilian Sex Determination. In: Leonard, J. (eds) Transitions Between Sexual Systems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94139-4_12
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