siiky
2023/04/23
2023/04/23
2023/08/22
nature,post,science
An article about how sex is determined in different animal species.
Sex appeared to be purely, simply genetic—until 1966, when a French zoologist discovered that the rainbow agama lizard did, in fact, rely on an environmental factor to determine sex. A higher temperature produced male rainbow agamas and a lower temperature, females. (The passion of the reptilian parents was not scrutinized.)
At the same time, climate change is cranking up the heat, which could wreak havoc for species that rely on temperature to, at least in part, generate females or males. Within temperature-dependent reptiles, some make "hot females," some make "hot males," and still others make females at both hot and cold extremes, with "lukewarm males" developing in the middle. Rising temperatures around the globe threaten to unbalance their sex ratios, or even erase one sex altogether.
"Do they have an advantage?" wonders Schwanz, who is one of the paper's authors. "What sex do they act like?" In the laboratory, ZZ females explore more like males, but in the wild their movement is indistinguishable from that of ZW females. They don't seem to be any more successful than their ZW sisters, but scientists have yet to determine what their role is in wild populations, which may already be shifting as the local temperatures rise. And it's unclear how many other animal species might harbor this hidden capability, waiting to be let loose in a rapidly changing environment.