No genetic contribution to variation in human offspring sex ratio: a total population study of 4.7 million births.

ABSTRACT: The ratio of males to females among an individual's offspring at birth (offspring sex ratio) has long been of great interest to evolutionary biologists. The human offspring sex ratio is around 1 : 1 and is understood primarily in terms of Fisher's principle (R. A. Fisher, The genetical theory of natural selection, 1930), which is based on the insight that in a population with an unequal sex ratio, each individual of the rarer sex will on average have greater reproductive value than each individual of the more common sex. Accordingly, individuals genetically predisposed to produce the rarer sex will tend to have greater fitness and thus genes predisposing to bearing that sex will increase in frequency until the population sex ratio approaches 1 : 1. An assumption of this perspective

SUBMITTER: Zietsch BP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7062014 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature