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Public Library of Science, PLoS Biology, 7(12), p. e1001899, 2014

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001899

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Sex Determination: Why So Many Ways of Doing It?

Journal article published in 2014 by Doris Bachtrog, Judith E. Mank, Catherine L. Peichel, Mark Kirkpatrick, Sarah P. Otto, Tia-Lynn Ashman, Matthew W. Hahn, Jun Kitano, Itay Mayrose, Ray Ming, Nicolas Perrin ORCID, Laura Ross, Nicole Valenzuela, Jana C. Vamosi
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Sexual reproduction is an ancient feature of life on earth, and the familiar X and Y chromosomes in humans and other model species have led to the impression that sex determination mechanisms are old and conserved. In fact, males and females are determined by diverse mechanisms that evolve rapidly in many taxa. Yet this diversity in primary sex-determining signals is coupled with conserved molecular pathways that trigger male or female development. Conflicting selection on different parts of the genome and on the two sexes may drive many of these transitions, but few systems with rapid turnover of sex determination mechanisms have been rigorously studied. Here we survey our current understanding of how and why sex determination evolves in animals and plants and identify important gaps in our knowledge that present exciting research opportunities to characterize the evolutionary forces and molecular pathways underlying the evolution of sex determination.