Biology 95hfi
Evolution of Sex

Syllabus by Week with Required Readings

First semester schedule

Sept. 17: Introduction: What is sex and why is it interesting? Sept. 24: What does it mean to be male? Sperm versus eggs Haig, D. (2000). "Of sex and gender." Nature Genetics 25: 373. Parker, G., V.G.F. Smith and R.R. Baker (1972). "The origin and evolution of gamete dimorphism and the male-female phenomenon." Journal of Theoretical Biology 36: 181-198. Randerson, J. and L. Hurst (2001). "The uncertain evolution of the sexes." Trends in Ecology and Evolution 16: 571-579. Oct. 1: Wooing your mate Andrade, M. (1996). "Sexual selection for male sacrifice in the Australian redback spider." Science 271: 70-72. Sinervo, B. and C. Lively. (1996). "The rock-paper-scissors game and the evolution of alternative male strategies." Nature 380: 240-243. Pomiankowski, A. and A. Møller (1995). "A resolution of the lek paradox." Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 260: 21-29. Kotiaho, J. S., L. W. Simmons and J. L. Tomkins (2001). "Towards a resolution of the lek paradox." Nature 410(6829): 684-6. Oct. 8: Choosing your mate Cox, C. and B. Le Boeuf (1977). "Female incitation of male competition: a mechanism in sexual selection." American Naturalist 111: 317-335. Balmford, A., I. Jones and A. Thomas (1994). "How to compensate for costly sexually selected tails: the origin of sexually dimorphic wings in long-tailed birds." Evolution 48(4): 1062-1070. Miller, G. and S. Pitnick (2002). "Sperm-female coevolution in Drosophila." Science 298: 1230-1233.

Strongly recommended reading for the 1st semester: Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation by Olivia Judson. Buy it now from Amazon.

Oct. 15: Tricking your mate
Funk, D. and D. Tallamy (2000). "Courtship role reversal and deceptive signals in the long-tailed dance fly, Rhamphomyia longicauda." Animal Behavior 59: 411-421.
Mori, S. (1995). "Factors associated with and fitness effects of nest-raiding in the three-spined stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus, in a natural situation." Behavior 132: 1011-1023.
Rohwer, S. (1978). "Parent cannibalism of offspring and egg raiding as a courtship strategy." American Naturalist 112: 429-440.

Oct. 22: Tricking your mate's mate
Abele, L. and S. Gilchrist (1977). "Homosexual rape and sexual selection in Acanthocephalan worms." Science 197: 81-83.
Taborsky, M. (2001). "The evolution of bourgeois, parasitic, and cooperative reproductive behaviors in fishes." Journal of Heredity 92: 100-110.

Oct. 30: Whose baby is it?
[The readings this week comprise two original papers -- Cunningham and Russell 2000 and Birkhead 1998 -- and the response articles they inspired.]
Cunningham, E. and A. Russell (2000). "Egg investment is influenced by male attractiveness in the mallard." Nature 404: 74-77.
Petrie, M., H. Schwabl, N. Brande-Lavridsen and T. Burke (2001). "Sex differences in avian yolk hormone levels." Nature 412: 498.
Cunningham, E. and A. Russell (2001). "Cunningham and Russell reply." Nature 412: 498-499.
Birkhead, T. (1998). "Cryptic female choice: criteria for establishing female sperm choice." Evolution 52: 1212-1218.
Eberhard, W.G. (2000) "Criteria for establishing postcopulatory female choice." Evolution 54(3): 1047-1050.
Kepenaers, B., K. Foerster, S. Questiau, B.C. Robertson and E.L.M. Vermeirssen (2000) "Distinguishing between female sperm choice versus male sperm competition: a comment on Birkhead." Evolution 54(3): 1050-1052.
Pitnick, S. and W.D. Brown (2000) "Criteria for demonstrating female sperm choice." Evolution 54(3): 1052-1056.
Birkhead, T. (2000). "Defining and demonstrating postcopulatory femle choice - again." Evolution 54(3): 1057-1060.

Nov. 5: Nobody's baby but mine.
Koprowski, J. (1992). "Removal of copulatory plugs by female tree squirrels." Journal of Mammalogy 73: 572-576.
Hosken, D. and P. Ward (2001). "Experimental evidence for testis size evolution via sperm competition." Ecology Letters 4: 10-13.

Nov. 12: Sex: costly or not?
Barton, N. and B. Charlesworth (1998). "Why sex and recombination?" Science 281: 1986-1987.
Judson, O. and B. Normark (1996). "Ancient asexual scandals." Trends in Ecology and Evolution 11(2): 41-46.
Holland, B. and W. R. Rice (1999). "Experimental removal of sexual selection reverses intersexual antagonistic coevolution and removes a reproductive load." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 96: 5083-5088.
Pitnick, S., W. Brown and G. Miller (2001). "Evolution of female remating behaviour following experimental removal of sexual selection." Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B 268: 557-563.
Pitnick, S., G. Miller, J. Reagan and B. Holland. (2001). "Males' evolutionary responses to experimental removal of sexual selection." Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B 268: 1071-1080.

Nov. 19: Those playful hermaphrodites 1 -- Hermaphroditic animals
Michiels, N. and B. Bakovski (2000). "Sperm trading in a hermaphroditic flatworm: reluctant fathers and sexy mothers." Animal Behaviour 59: 319-325.
Michiels, N. and L. Newman (1998). "Sex and violence in hermaphrodites." Nature 391: 647.
Leonard, J. and K. Lukowiak (1985). "Courtship, copulation, and sperm trading in the sea slug, Navanax inermis (Opisthobranchia: Cephalaspidae)." Canadian Journal of Zoology 63: 2719-2729.
Trivers, R. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In Sexual Selection and the Descent of Man 1871-1971, ed. B. Campbell, pg. 136-179. Aldine Publishing Company: Chicago. [distributed in class]

Dec. 3: Those playful hermaphrodites 2 -- Hermaphroditic plants
Brunet, J. (1992). "Sex allocation in hermaphroditic plants." Trends in Ecology and Evolution 7: 79-84.
Klinkhamer, P., T. de Jong and H. Metz (1997). "Sex and size in cosexual plants." Trends in Ecology and Evolution 12: 260-265.
McKone, M.J., C.P. Lund and J.M. O'Brien (1998). "Reproductive biology of two dominant prairie grasses (Andropogon gerardii and Sorghastrum nutans, Poaceae): male-biased sex allocation in wind-pollinated plants?" American Journal of Botany 85(6): 776-783.

Dec. 10: Herland: all-female species
Alves, M., M. Coelho and M. Collares-Pereira (1998). "Diversity in the reproductive modes of females of the Rutilus alburnoides complex (Teleostei, Cyprinidae): a way to avoid the genetic constraints of uniparentalism." Molecular Biology and Evolution 15: 1233-1242.
Beukeboom, L. and R. Vrijenhoek (1998). "Evolutionary genetics and ecology of sperm dependent parthenogenesis." Journal of Evolutionary Biology 11: 755-782.

Second semester schedule

[Feb. 23: First draft of term paper due.]

Feb. 25: How big should baby be?
Trivers, R. (1974). "Parent-offspring conflict." American Zoologist 14: 249-264.
Haig, D. (1993). "Genetic conflicts in human pregnancy." Quarterly Review of Biology 68: 495-532.

Mar. 3: Who's bringing up baby?
Westneat, D. and R. Sargent (1996). "Sex and parenting: the effects of sexual conflict and parentage on parental strategies." Trends in Ecology and Evolution 11: 87-91.
Wade, M. and S. Schuster (2002). "The evolution of parental care in the context of sexual selection: a critical reassessment of parental investment theory." American Naturalist 160(3): 285-292.

[Mar. 10: First drafts returned with comments]

Mar. 10: Sex determination I: let the environment decide
Mittwoch, U. (1996). "Sex-determining mechanisms in animals." Trends in Ecology and Evolution 11(2): 63-67.
Munday, P.L. (2002). "Bi-directional sex change: testing the growth-rate advantage model." Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 52: 247-254.
Haig, D. and M. Westoby (1988). "Sex expression in homosporous ferns: an evolutionary perspective." Evolutionary Trends in Plants 2(2): 111-119.
Freedberg, S. and M. Wade (2001). "Cultural inheritance as a mechanism for population sex-ratio bias in reptiles." Evolution 55: 1049-1055.

Mar. 17: Sex determination II: XYWZ, how boys and girls are set to be
Charlesworth, B. (1991). "The evolution of sex chromosomes." Science 251: 1030-1033.
Graves, J.A.M. and S. Shetty. (2001). "Sex from W to Z: Evolution of vertebrate sex chromosomes and sex determining genes." Journal of Experimental Zoology 290: 449-462.
Marin, I. and B. Baker (1998). "The evolutionary dynamics of sex determination." Science 281: 1990-1991.
[Recommended: Graves, J.A.M. (2002). "Sex chromosomes and sex determination in weird mammals." Cytogenetics and Genome Research 96: 161-168. ]

Mar. 24: Sex determination III: sons without fathers
Stöck, M., D. Lamatsch, et al. (2002). "A bisexually reproducing all-triploid vertebrate." Nature Genetics 30: 324-328.
Haig, D. (1993). The evolution of unusual chromosomal systems in coccoids: extraordinary sex ratios revisited. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 6: 69-77.
Normark, B. (2003). "The evolution of alternative genetic systems in insects." Annual Review of Entomology 48: 397-423.

[Mar. 26: Final drafts of term papers due]

Apr. 7: Sex determination IV: let the parasites decide
Cook, J. and R. Butcher (1999). "The transmission and effects of Wolbachia bacteria in parasitoids." Res Popul Ecol 41: 15-28.
Werren, J. (1997). "Biology of Wolbachia." Annual Review of Entomology 42: 587-609.
Weeks, A.R., F. Marec and J.A.J. Breeuwer (2001). "A mite species that consists of entirely haploid females." Science 292: 2479-2482.
Alexander, H.M. and J. Antonovics (1988). "Disease spread and population dynamics of anther-smut infection of Silene alba caused by the fungus Ustilago violacea." Journal of Ecology 76(1): 91-104.

Apr. 14: Sex and meiotic drive -- a different kind of sex drive
Jaenike, J. (2001). "Sex chromosome meiotic drive." Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 32: 25-49.
Hoekstra, H. and J. Hoekstra (2001). "An unusual sex-determination system in South American field mice (genus Akodon): the role of mutation, selection, and meiotic drive in maintaining XY females." Evolution 55(1): 190-197.
Wilkinson, G., D. Presgraves and L. Crymes (1998). "Male eye span in stalk-eyed flied indicates genetic quality by meiotic drive suppression." Nature 391: 276-279.

Apr. 21: Too many boys: the evolution of sex ratios
Cockburn, A. (1994). "Adaptive sex allocation by brood reduction in antechinuses." Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 35: 53-62.
Cockburn, A. (1999). "Deer destiny determined by density." Nature 399: 407-408.
Kruuk, L., T. Clutton-Brock, S. Albon, J. Pemberton and F. Guinness (1999). "Population density affects sex ratio variation in red deer." Nature 399: 459-461.
Trivers, R.L. and D.E. Willard. (1973). "Natural selection of parental ability to vary the sex ratio of offspring." Science 179: 90-92.
[Recommended: Hamilton, W.D. (1967). "Extraordinary sex ratios." Science 156: 477-488.]

Apr. 28: Sexually antagonistic alleles: boys against girls
Rice, W. (1998). "Male fitness increases when females are eliminate from gene pool: implications for the Y chromosome." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 95: 6217-6221.
Chippindale, A.K., J.R. Gibson and W.R. Rice. (2001). "Negative genetic correlation for adult fitness between sexes reveals ontogenetic conflict in Drosophila." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98: 1671-1675.
Rice, W.R. (1992). "Sexually anatagonistic genes: experimental evidence." Science 256: 1436-1439.
Rice, W.R. and A.K. Chippindale. (2001). "Intersexual ontogenetic conflict." Journal of Evolutionary Biology 14: 685-693.

May 5: Parental conflicts: mom versus dad
Moore, T. and D. Haig (1991). "Genomic imprinting: a parental tug-of-war." Trends in Genetics 7: 45-49.
Haig, D. and C. Graham (1991). "Genomic imprinting and the strange case of the insulin-like growth factor II receptor." Cell 64: 1045-1046.
Trivers, R. and A. Burt. (1999). "Kinship and genomic imprinting." In Genomic Imprinting: an Interdisciplinary Approach, ed. R. Ohlsson, pg. 1-21. Springer-Verlag: Berlin. [distributed in class]
Burt, A. and R. Trivers. (1998). "Genetic conflicts in genomic imprinting." Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B 265: 2393-2397.