Abstract
There are three sex ratio strategies (SRS) in nature—male-biased sex ratio, female-biased sex ratio and, equal sex ratio. It was R. A. Fisher who first explained why most species in nature display a sex ratio of ½. Consequent SRS theories such as Hamilton’s local mate competition (LMC) and Clark’s local resource competition (LRC) separately explained the observed deviations from the seemingly universal 1:1 ratio. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is not yet a unified theory that accounts for the mechanisms of the three SRS. Here, we introduce the price elasticity theory in economics to define sex ratio elasticity (SRE), and present an analytical model that derives three SRSs based on the following assumption: simultaneously existing competitions for both resources A and resources B influence the level of SRE in both sexes differently. Consequently, it is the difference (between two sexes) in the level of their sex ratio elasticity that leads to three different SRS. Our analytical results demonstrate that the elasticity-based model not only reveals a highly plausible mechanism that explains the evolution of SRS in nature, but also offers a novel framework for unifying two major classical theories (i.e., LMC & LRC) in the field of SRS research.
Highlights
There are three sex ratio strategies (SRS) in nature—male-biased sex ratio, female-biased sex ratio and, equal sex ratio
Male offspring compete for one resources and female offspring compete for the other resources may occur simultaneous in a same patch, and these competitions could lead to the difference of the sex ratio elasticity (SRE)-MSR and SRE-FSR3,18
The model described in this paper shows that if we assume that male offspring and female offspring compete for different resources, and male offspring compete for resources A
Summary
Yaqiang Wang[1,2], Ruiwu Wang[3], Yaotang Li4 & Zhanshan (Sam) Ma2 received: 12 August 2016 accepted: 25 November 2016 Published: 23 December 2016. We introduce the price elasticity theory in economics to define sex ratio elasticity (SRE), and present an analytical model that derives three SRSs based on the following assumption: simultaneously existing competitions for both resources A and resources B influence the level of SRE in both sexes differently. The existing model do already incorporate the simultaneous mate competition among male offspring and resource competition among female offspring into a single framework[3,18], to the best of our knowledge, in the existing literature, how the sex ratio elasticity of male (female) survival rate affects the SRS, which has never been studied before. It is the difference in the sex ratio elasticity that influences the evolution of sex ratio strategy
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