Drew AndersonToday, after years of work, the American Naturalist has just accepted my proposed Ancestral Modulation Hypothesis in #SexDiversity, #SexualSelection, and #CrossSexualTransfer as a perspective and synthesis. This framework will guide my research can be used across a range of studies on sex-bias and regulation and explain the diversity we see. It was built with the help and guidance of my post-doctoral mentor and coauthor Suzy Renn. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/725438
I think this can help explain #SexDiversity especially since we know the signals can vary due to environment and genetics at the individual level. Evolution may cause some variants to spread leading to population or species-wide #CrossSexualTransfer. A plastic response may also be favored as individuals can respond to new environments by adjusting trait values more typical of the other sex.
When we think about sexual heteromorphisms, we think of a monomorphic ancestor, but MJ West-Eberhard proposed that sometimes one sex may adopt trait characteristics that were biased towards the other sex, causing monomorphism or a new heteromorphic trait distribution. She called this #CrossSexualTransfer. What the AMH predicts is what mechanisms govern trait expression when the ancestral trait was monomorphic and what mechanisms govern trait expression when the ancestral was heteromorphic.