Sex determination systems in reptiles are related to ambient temperature but not to the level of climatic fluctuation.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Vertebrates exhibit diverse sex determination systems and reptiles stand out by having highly variable sex determinations that include temperature-dependent and genotypic sex determination (TSD and GSD, respectively). Theory predicts that populations living in either highly variable or cold climatic conditions should evolve genotypic sex determination to buffer the populations from extreme sex ratios, yet these fundamental predictions have not been tested across a wide range of taxa. RESULTS:Here, we use phylogenetic analyses of 213 reptile species representing 38 families (TSD = 101 species, GSD = 112 species) and climatic data to compare breeding environments between reptiles with GSD versus TSD. We show that GSD and TSD are confronted with the same level of climatic fluctuati

SUBMITTER: Cornejo-Paramo P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7433102 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature