Animals have evolved a bewildering diversity of mechanisms to determine the two sexes. Studies of sex determination genes--their history and function--in non-model insects and Drosophila have allowed us to begin to understand the generation of sex determination diversity. One common theme from these studies is that evolved mechanisms produce activities in either males or females to control a sh...

Sex identification from fragmentary archeozoological assemblages is particularly challenging in the Equid family, including for horses, donkeys and their hybrids. This limitation has precluded in-depth investigations of sex-ratio variation various temporal, geographic social contexts. Recently, shallow DNA sequencing offered an economical solution to equine sex determination, even environments ...

struggled for years with parasites that evolve resistance to commonly used drugs. Why should it be any different in animals? Yet as far as we know, no study has ever looked at whether parasites become resistant to the chemicals in the plants that hosts use for protection, though in the Drosophila example referenced above, ethanol did not negatively affect larvae of specialist wasps as strongly ...

Of all the differences that distinguish people, the most obvious and most intriguing one is their sex. The relationship between males and females has had a profound influence on human civilization, causing wars and societal up heavals, and inspiring countless works of art, music and literature. For as long as humans have both struggled with and enjoyed the existence of the two sexes, they have ...

Capsule Discriminant functions based on morphometric variables provide a reliable method for sex identification of free-living and hacked young Ospreys. Aims To describe an easy, accurate and low-cost method for sex determination of fully grown nestling and fledgling Ospreys Pandion haliaetus based on morphometric measurements. Methods Four different measurements were taken in 114 birds (40–73 ...

Apoptosis is essential for proper development and tissue homeostasis in metazoans. It plays a critical role in generating sexual dimorphism by eliminating structures that are not needed in a specific sex. The molecular mechanisms that regulate sexually dimorphic apoptosis are poorly understood. Here we report the identification of the ceh-30 gene as a key regulator of sex-specific apoptosis in ...

Female sex determination in the germ line of Drosophila melanogaster is regulated by genes functioning in the soma as well as genes that function within the germ line. Genes known or suspected to be involved in germ-line sex determination in Drosophila melanogaster have been examined to determine if they are required upstream or downstream of Sex-lethal+, a known germ-line sex determination gen...

In several Hymenoptera, sexual fate is determined by the allelic composition at the complementary sex-determiner locus, a sex-determination mechanism that can strongly affect population dynamics. To date, the molecular identification of complementary sex determiner has only been achieved in the honeybee, where the complementary sex-determiner gene was reported to have arisen from duplication of...