Whatever the weather: ambient temperature does not influence the proportion of males born in New Zealand.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The proportion of male births has been shown to be over 50% in temperate climates around the world. Given that fluctuations in ambient temperature have previously been shown to affect sex allocation in humans, we examined the hypothesis that ambient temperature predicts fluctuations in the proportion of male births in New Zealand.

Methodology/principal findings

We tested three main hypotheses using time series analyses. Firstly, we used historical annual data in New Zealand spanning 1876-2009 to test for a positive effect of ambient temperature on the proportion of male births. The proportion of males born ranged by 3.17%, from 0.504 to 0.520, but no significant relationship was observed between male birth rates and mean annual temperature in the concurrent or pre

SUBMITTER: Dixson BJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3177861 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature