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Science 13 October 2000:
Vol. 290. no. 5490, pp. 288 - 290
DOI: 10.1126/science.290.5490.288

Perspectives

EVOLUTION:
The Benefits of Allocating Sex

Stuart A. West, Edward Allen Herre, Ben C. Sheldon

Organisms allocate resources to male and female offspring in a process called sex allocation. In a Perspective, Stuart West and colleagues discuss what sex allocation tells us about evolution by natural selection and how sex allocation can be applied to understanding the mating structure of parasitic protozoans.


S. A. West is at the Institute of Cell, Animal and Population Biology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK. E-mail: stu.west{at}ed.ac.uk E. A. Herre is at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Republic of Panama. B. C. Sheldon is in the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK.

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
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P. Korsten, C. M. Lessells, A. C. Mateman, M. van der Velde, and J. Komdeur (2006)
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Sex ratios under asymmetrical local mate competition in the parasitoid wasp Nasonia vitripennis.
D. M. Shuker, I. Pen, and S. A. West (2006)
Behav. Ecol. 17, 345-352
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How outcrossing hermaphrodites sense the presence of conspecifics and suppress female allocation.
D. Schleicherova, M. C. Lorenzi, and G. Sella (2006)
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Sex ratio variation in the cooperatively breeding alpine marmot Marmota marmota.
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Information constraints and the precision of adaptation: Sex ratio manipulation in wasps.
D. M. Shuker and S. A. West (2004)
PNAS 101, 10363-10367
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Striking variation in the sex ratio of pups born to mice according to whether maternal diet is high in fat or carbohydrate.
C. S. Rosenfeld, K. M. Grimm, K. A. Livingston, A. M. Brokman, W. E. Lamberson, and R. M. Roberts (2003)
PNAS 100, 4628-4632
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Extremely female-biased sex ratio and lethal male-male combat in a parasitoid wasp, Melittobia australica (Eulophidae).
J. Abe, Y. Kamimura, N. Kondo, and M. Shimada (2003)
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Variable host quality, life-history invariants, and the reproductive strategy of a parasitoid wasp that produces single sex clutches.
S. A. West, K. E. Flanagan, and H. C. J. Godfray (2001)
Behav. Ecol. 12, 577-583
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Constraints in the Evolution of Sex Ratio Adjustment.
S. A. West and B. C. Sheldon (2002)
Science 295, 1685-1688
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)