ArticleNature communications2023
Transient polymorphisms in parental care strategies drive divergence of sex roles.
Article in Nature communications, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Demographic causes and social consequences of adult sex ratio variation.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Do alternative reproductive tactics facilitate evolutionary rescue? A comment on Knell & Parrett 2024.Evolution letters · 2026Article
- The evolution of negotiation strategies diversifies parental cooperation.Communications biology · 2025Article
- A neural network model for the evolution of reconstructive social learning.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Burying beetles as a model organism to study sex differences in parental care.Insectes sociaux · 2025Review
- The evolution of sex roles: The importance of ecology and social environment.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Transient polymorphisms in parental care strategies drive divergence of sex roles.Nature communications · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The parental roles of males and females differ considerably between and within species. By means of individual-based evolutionary simulations, we strive to explain this diversity. We show that the conflict between the sexes creates a sex bias (towards maternal or paternal care), even if the two sexes are initially identical. When including sexual selection, there are two outcomes: either female mate choice and maternal care or no mate choice and paternal care. Interestingly, the care pattern drives sexual selection and not vice versa. Longer-term simulations exhibit rapid switches between alternative parental care patterns, even in constant environments. Hence, the evolutionary lability of sex roles observed in phylogenetic studies is not necessarily caused by external changes. Overall, our findings are in striking contrast to the predictions of mathematical models. We show that the discrepancies are caused by transient within-sex polymorphisms in parental strategies, a factor largely neglected in current sex-role theory.
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