ArticleBiology letters2017
O brother, where art thou? Investment in siblings for inclusive fitness benefits, not father absence, predicts earlier age at menarche.
Article in Biology letters, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- The association between age at menarche and subsequent risk of chronic pain.Frontiers in global women's health · 2026Review
- Cooperation and partner choice among Agta hunter-gatherer children: An evolutionary developmental perspective.PloS one · 2023Article
- Family environmental antecedents of pubertal timing in girls and boys: A review and open questions.Hormones and behavior · 2022Review
- Article
- Sibling relatedness rather than father absence predicts earlier age at menarche in ELSPAC cohort.Biology letters · 2019Article
- Cross-cultural evidence does not support universal acceleration of puberty in father-absent households.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Review
- Correction to 'O brother, where art thou? Investment in siblings for inclusive fitness benefits, not father absence, predicts earlier age at menarche'.Biology letters · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Numerous studies have indicated that father absence is associated with earlier age at menarche, with many evolutionary theories assuming that father absence is a causal factor that accelerates reproductive development. However, an alternative interpretation suggests that offspring may reproduce earlier in the presence of half- or step-siblings as the indirect fitness benefits to investing in them are lower, relative to delaying reproduction and investing in full siblings. From this perspective, father absence may perform no causal role in facilitating the onset of menarche. Using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, I find that individuals with only half- or step-siblings reach reproductive age earlier than those with only full siblings, with no independent effect of father absence. These results suggest that inclusive fitness benefits to investing in siblings, rather than father absence, may predict variation in age at menarche. These results provide a greater understanding of the adaptive mechanisms involved in reproductive decision-making, as well as potential implications for human life-history evolution and cooperative breeding more broadly.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.