The "Sex Role" Concept: An Overview and Evaluation

Evolutionary Biology

Volumn 40, Issue 4, 2013, Pages 461-470

  Ah King, Malin ^a   Ahnesjö, Ingrid ^a  

^a UPPSALA UNIVERSITY   (Sweden)

Author keywords

Mate choice; Mating competition; Sex role reversal; Sex roles; Sexual selection

Indexed keywords

EID: 84888133382     PISSN: 00713260     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s11692-013-9226-7     Document Type: Article

References (99)

1. Ah-King, M., & Nylin, S. (2010). Flexible mate choice. In M. D. Breed & J. Moore (Eds.), Encyclopedia of animal behavior. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
2. Ah-King, M. (2011a). Female sexual selection in light of the Darwin-Bateman paradigm. Behavioral Ecology, 22(6), 1142-1143.
3. Ah-King, M. (2011b). Biologins paradox: föränderliga kön och rigida normer. [The paradox of biology: Flexible sexes and rigid norms.] Lambda Nordica, 4, 26-52.
4. Ah-King, M. (2013). On anisogamy and the evolution of 'sex-roles'. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 28(1), 1-2.
5. Ah-King, M., & Ahnesjö, I. (2012). Vad kan vi lära av biologisk forskning om "könsroller"? [What can we learn from biological research about "sex roles"?] Tidskrift för genusvetenskap, 4, 51-56.
6. Ahnesjö, I., Forsgren, E., & Kvarnemo, C. (2008). Variation in sexual selection in fishes. In C. Magnhagen, V. Braithwaite, E. Forsgren, & B. G. Kapoor (Eds.), Fish Behaviour. Enfield: Science Publ. Inc.
7. Ahnesjö, I., Kvarnemo, C., & Merilaita, S. (2001). Using potential reproductive rates to predict mating competition among individuals qualified to mate. Behavioral Ecology, 12, 397-401.
8. Altmann, J. (1997). Mate choice and intrasexual reproductive competition: Contributions to reproduction that go beyond acquiring more mates. In P. A. Gowaty (Ed.), Feminism and evolutionary biology, boundaries, intersections and frontiers (pp. 320-333). New York: Chapman & Hall.
9. Amundsen, T. (2000). Why are female birds ornamented? Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 15, 149-155.
10. Anderson, W. W., Yong-Kyu, K., & Gowaty, P. A. (2007). Experimental constraints on mate preferences in drosophila pseudoobscura decrease offspring viability and fitness of mated pairs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104, 4484-4488.
11. Andersson, M. (1994). Sexual selection. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
12. Andersson, M. (2005). Evolution of classical polyandry: Three steps to female emancipation. Ethology, 111, 1-23.
13. Anselmi, D. L., & Law, A. L. (Eds.). (1998). Questions of gender: Perspectives and paradoxes. Boston: McGraw Hill.
14. Anthes, N., Putz, A., & Michiels, N. K. (2006). Sex role preferences, gender conflict and sperm trading in simultaneous hermaphrodites: A new framework. Animal Behaviour, 72, 1-12.
15. Arnqvist, G., Jones, T. M., & Elgar, M. A. (2007). The extraordinary mating system of Zeus bugs (Heteroptera: Veliidae: Phoreticovelia sp.). Australian Journal of Zoology, 55, 131-137.
16. Bailey, N. W., & Zuk, M. (2009). Same-sex sexual behavior and evolution. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 24, 439-446.
17. Barlow, G. W. (2005). How do we decide that a species is sex-role reversed? Quarterly Review of Biology, 80, 28-35.
18. Barreto, F. S., & Avise, J. C. (2010). Quantitative measures of sexual selection reveal no evidence for sex-role reversal in a sea spider with prolonged paternal care. Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B-Biological Sciences, 277, 2951-2956.
19. Bateman, A. J. (1948). Intra-sexual selection in Drosophila. Heredity, 2, 349-368.
20. Bonduriansky, R. (2001). The evolution of male mate choice in insects: A synthesis of ideas and evidence. Biological Reviews, 76, 305-339.
21. Bonduriansky, R. (2009). Reappraising sexual coevolution and the sex roles. PLoS Biology, 7, e1000255.
22. Borg, Å., Forsgren, E., & Magnhagen, C. (2002). Plastic sex-roles in the common goby: The effect of nest availability. Oikos, 98, 105-115.
23. Bro-Jorgensen, J. (2007). Reversed sexual conflict in a promiscuous antelope. Current Biology, 17, 2157-2161.
24. Clark, A. B. (1978). Sex ratio and local resource competition in a prosimian primate. Science, 201, 163-165.
25. Clutton-Brock, T. (2007). Sexual selection in males and females. Science, 318, 1882-1885.
26. Clutton-Brock, T. (2009). Sexual selection in females. Animal Behaviour, 77, 3-11.
27. Clutton-Brock, T. H., Albon, S. D., & Guinness, F. E. (1982). Competition between female relatives in a matrilocal mammal. Nature, 300, 178-180.
28. Cunningham, E. J. A., & Birkhead, T. R. (1998). Sex roles and sexual selection. Animal Behaviour, 56, 1311-1321.
29. Darwin, C. (1871). The descent of man and selection in relation to sex. London: John Murray.
30. de Jong, K., Wacker, S., Amundsen, T., & Forsgren, E. (2009). Do operational sex ratio and density affect mating behaviour? An experiment on the two-spotted goby. Animal Behaviour, 78, 1229-1238.
31. Dewsbury, D. A. (2005). The Darwin-Bateman Paradigm in historical context. Integrative Comparative Biology, 45, 831-837.
32. Edward, D. A., & Chapman, T. (2011). The evolution and significance of male mate choice. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 26, 647-654.
33. Eens, M., & Pinxten, R. (2000). Sex-role reversal in vertebrates: Behavioural and endocrinological accounts. Behavioural Processes, 51, 135-147.
34. Forsgren, E., Amundsen, T., Borg, A. A., & Bjelvenmark, J. (2004). Unusually dynamic sex roles in a fish. Nature, 429, 551-554.
35. Fritzsche, K., Arnqvist, G. (in press). Homage to Bateman: Sex roles predict sex differences in sexual selection. Evolution. doi: 10. 1111/evo. 12086.
36. Ganetz, H. (2004). Familiar beasts: Nature, culture and gender in wildlife films on television. Nordicom Review, 25, 197-213.
37. Gowaty, P. A. (1981). The aggression of breeding easternbluebirds, Sialia sialis, toward each other and intra- and interspecific intruders. Animal Behaviour, 29, 1013-1027.
38. Gowaty, P. A. (1982). Sexual terms in sociobiology-Emotionally evocative and paradoxically, jargon. Animal Behaviour, 30, 630-631.
39. Gowaty, P. A. (1983). Male parental care and apparent monogamy among eastern bluebirds (Sialia sialis). The American Naturalist, 121(2), 149-157.
40. Gowaty, P. A. (1997). Sexual dialectics, sexual selection, and variation in reproductive behavior. In P. A. Gowaty (Ed.), Feminism and evolutionary biology: Boundaries, intersections and frontiers (pp. 351-384). New York: Chapman & Hall.
41. Gowaty, P. A. (2011). What is sexual selection and the short herstory of female trait variation. Behavioral Ecology, 22(6), 1146-1147.
42. Gowaty, P. A., Anderson, W. W., Bluhm, C. K., Drickamer, L. C., & Kim, Y. K. (2007). The hypothesis of reproductive compensation and its assumptions about mate preferences and offspring viability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104, 15023-15027.
43. Gowaty, P. A., & Hubbell, S. P. (2005). Chance, time allocation, and the evolution of adaptively flexible sex role behavior. Integrative and Comparative Biology, 45, 931-944.
44. Gowaty, P. A., & Hubbell, S. P. (2009). Reproductive decisions under ecological constraints: It's about time. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106, 10017-10024.
45. Gowaty, P. A., & Hubbell, S. P. (2013). The evolutionary origins of female mating failures and multiple mating. Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata, 146(1), 11-25.
46. Gowaty, P. A., Kim, Y. K., & Anderson, W. W. (2012). No evidence of sexual selection in a repetition of Bateman's classic study of Drosophila melanogaster. Proceedings of the National Achademy of Sciences, 109(29), 11740-11745.
47. Gowaty, P. A., & Wagner, S. J. (1988). Breeding season aggression of female and male Eastern bluebirds (Sialia sialis) to models of potential conspecific and interspecific egg dumpers. Ethology, 78, 238-250.
48. Goymann, W., Wittenzellner, A., & Wingfield, J. C. (2004). Competing females and caring males. Polyandry and sex-role reversal in African black coucals, Centropus grillii. Ethology, 110, 807-823.
49. Griffith, S. C., Owens I. P. E., & Thuman, K. A. (2002). Extra pair paternity in birds: a review of interspecific variation and adaptive function. Molecular Ecology, 11, 2195-2212.
50. Gross, M. R., & Sargent, R. C. (1985). The evolution of male and female parental care in fishes. American Zoologist, 25, 807-822.
51. Gwynne, D. T. (1981). Sexual difference theory-Mormon crickets show role reversal in mate choice. Science, 213, 779-780.
52. Gwynne, D. T., & Simmons, L. W. (1990). Experimental reversal of courtship roles in an insect. Nature, 346, 172-174.
53. Hrdy, S. B. (1981). The woman that never evolved. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
54. Hrdy, S. B. (1986). Empathy, polyandry and the myth of the coy female. In R. Breed (Ed.), Feminist approaches to science (pp. 119-146). New York: Pergamon Press.
55. Hunt, J., Breuker, C. J., Sadowski, J. A., & Moore, A. J. (2009). Male-male competition, female mate choice and their interaction: Determining total sexual sexual selection. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 22, 13-26.
56. Itzkowitz, M., Santangelo, N., & Richter, M. (2001). Parental division of labour and the shift from minimal to maximal role specializations: An examination using a biparental fish. Animal Behaviour, 61, 1237-1245.
57. Jiggins, F. M., Hurst, G. D. D., & Majerus, M. E. N. (2000). Sex-ratio-distorting Wolbachia causes sex-role reversal in its butterfly host. Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B-Biological Sciences, 267, 69-73.
58. Johnson, L. K. (1982). Sexual selection in a brentid weevil. Evolution, 36, 251-262.
59. Jones, A. G., Rosenqvist, G., Berglund, A., & Avise, J. C. (2005). The measurement of sexual selection using Bateman's principles: An experimental test in the sex-role-reversed pipefish Syngnathus typhle. Integrative and Comparative Biology, 45, 874-884.
60. Jones, A. G., Walker, D., & Avise, J. C. (2001). Genetic evidence for extreme polyandry and extraordinary sex-role reversal in a pipefish. Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B-Biological Sciences, 268, 2531-2535.
61. Klug, H., Lindström, K., & Kokko, H. (2010). Who to include in measures of sexual selection is no trivial matter. Ecology Letters, 13, 1094-1102.
62. Kokko, H., & Jennions, M. D. (2008). Parental investment, sexual selection and sex ratios. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 21, 919-948.
63. Kosztolanyi, A., Barta, Z., Kupper, C., & Szekely, T. (2011). Persistence of an extreme male-biased adult sex ratio in a natural population of polyandrous bird. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 24, 1842-1846.
64. Kvarnemo, C., Moore, G. I., & Jones, A. G. (2007). Sexually selected females in the monogamous Western Australian seahorse. Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B-Biological Sciences, 274, 521-525.
65. Kvarnemo, C., & Simmons, L. W. (1999). Variance in female quality, operational sex ratio and male mate choice in a bushcricket. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 45, 245-252.
66. Kvarnemo, C., & Simmons, L. W. (2013). Polyandry as a mediator of sexual selection before and after mating. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B Biological Sciences, 368, 20120042.
67. Lawton, M., Garstka, F., William, R., & Hanks, J. C. (1997). The mask of theory and the face of nature. In P. A. Gowaty (Ed.), Feminism and evolutionary biology: Boundaries, intersections and frontiers (pp. 63-85). New York: Chapman & Hall.
68. Lyon, B. E., & Montgomerie, R. (2012). Sexual selection is a form of social selection. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 367, 2266-2273.
69. Maddison, W. P., Maddison, D. R. (2010). Mesquite: A modular system for evolutionary analysis. Version 2. 73 http://mesquiteproject. org.
70. Mattle, B., & Wilson, A. B. (2009). Body size preferences in the pot-bellied seahorse Hippocampus abdominalis: Choosy males and indiscriminate females. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 63, 1403-1410.
71. Maurer, G., Double, M. C., Milenkaya, O., Süsser, M., & Magrath, R. D. (2011). Breaking the rules: Sex roles and genetic mating system of the pheasant coucal. Oecologia, 167, 413-425.
72. Myhre, L., de Jong, K., Forsgren, E., & Amundsen, T. (2012). Sex roles and mutual mate choice matter during mate sampling. American Naturalist, 179, 741-755.
73. Owens, I. P. F., Burke, T., & Thompson, D. B. A. (1994). Extraordinary sex-roles in the Eurasian dotterel-Female mating arenas, female-female competition, and female mate choice. American Naturalist, 144, 76-100.
74. Parker, G. A., Baker, R. R., & Smith, V. G. F. (1972). The origin and evolution of gamete dimorphism and the male-female phenomenon. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 36, 529-553.
75. Pizzari, T., & Wedell, N. (2013). The polyandry revolution. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B Biological Sciences, 368, 20120041.
76. Ralls, K. (1976). Mammals in which females are larger than males. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 51(2), 245-276.
77. Rosenqvist, G., & Berglund, A. (2011). Sexual signals and mating patterns in Syngnathidae. Journal of Fish Biology, 78, 1647-1661.
78. Rosvall, K. A. (2011). Intrasexual competition in females: Evidence for sexual selection? Behavioral Ecology, 22, 1131-1140.
79. Rubenstein, D. R. (2012). Sexual and social competition: broadening perspectives by defining female roles: Introduction. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 367, 2248-2252.
80. Rytkonen, S., Orell, M., & Koivula, K. (1993). Sex-role reversal in willow tit nest defense. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 33, 275-282.
81. Salehialavi, Y., Fritzsche, K., & Arnqvist, G. (2011). The cost of mating and mutual mate choice in two role-reversed seed honey locust beetles. Behavioral Ecology, 22, 1104-1113.
82. Schärer, L., Rowe, L., & Arnqvist, G. (2012). Anisogamy, chance and the evolution of sex roles. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 27, 260-264.
83. Shuster, S. M., Briggs, W. R., & Dennis, P. A. (2013). How multiple mating by females affects sexual selection. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 367, 20120046.
84. Silk, J. B., Clark-Wheatley, C. B., et al. (1981). Differential reproductive success and facultative adjustment of sex ratios among captive female bonnet macaques (Macaca radiata). Animal Behaviour, 29, 1106-1120.
85. Silva, K., Vieira, M. N., Almada, V. C., & Monteiro, N. M. (2010). Reversing sex role reversal: Compete only when you must. Animal Behaviour, 79, 885-893.
86. Small, M. F. (1993). Female choices; Sexual behavior of female primates. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
87. Snyder, B. F., & Gowaty, P. A. (2007). A reappraisal of Bateman's classic study of intrasexual selection. Evolution, 61, 2457-2468.
88. Stockley, P., & Bro-Jorgensen, J. (2011). Female competition and its evolutionary consequences in mammals. Biological Reviews, 86, 341-366.
89. Sutherland, W. J. (1985). Chance can produce a sex difference in variance in mating success and account for Bateman's data. Animal Behaviour, 33, 1349-1352.
90. Svensson, B. G., & Petersson, E. (2000). Swarm site fidelity in the sex role-reversed dance fly Empis borealis. Journal of Insect Behavior, 13, 785-796.
91. Tang-Martinez, Z. (2010). Bateman's principles: Original experiment and modern data for and against. In M. D. Breed & J. Moore (Eds.), Encyclopedia of animal behavior. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
92. Tang-Martinez, Z., & Ryder, T. B. (2005). The problem with paradigms: Bateman's worldview as a case study. Integrative and Comparative Biology, 45, 821-830.
93. Trivers, R. L. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In B. Campbell (Ed.), Sexual selection and the descent of man (pp. 136-179). Chicago: Aldine.
94. Ursprung, E., Ringler, M., Jehle, R., & Hödl, W. (2011). Strong male-male competition allows for nonchoosy females: High levels of polygynandry in a territorial frog with paternal care. Molecular Ecology, 20, 1759-1771.
95. Vincent, A., Ahnesjö, I., Berglund, A., & Rosenqvist, G. (1992). Pipefishes and seahorses-Are they all sex-role reversed? Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 7, 237-241.
96. West, C., & Zimmerman, D. H. (1987). Doing gender. Gender & Society, 1, 125-151.
97. Williams, G. C. (1966). Adaptation and natural selection. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
98. Williams, G. C. (1975). Sex and evolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
99. Wilson, A. B., Ahnesjö, I., Vincent, A. C. J., & Meyer, A. (2003). The dynamics of male brooding, mating patterns, and sex roles in pipefishes and seahorses (family Syngnathidae). Evolution, 57, 1374-1386.