Sex Allocation

Recent decades have witnessed an explosion of theoretical and empirical studies of sex allocation, transforming how we understand the allocation of resources to male and female reproduction in vertebrates, invertebrates, protozoa, and plants. In this landmark book, Stuart West synthesizes the vast literature on sex allocation, providing the conceptual framework the field has been lacking and demonstrating how sex-allocation studies can shed light on broader questions in evolutionary and behavioral biology. West clarifies fundamental misconceptions in the application of theory to empirical data. He examines the field's successes and failures, and describes the research areas where much important work is yet to be done. West reveals how a shared underlying theoretical framework unites findings of sex-ratio variation across a huge range of life forms, from malarial parasites and hermaphroditic worms to sex-changing fish and mammals. He shows how research on sex allocation has been central to many critical questions and controversies in evolutionary and behavioral biology, and he argues that sex-allocation research serves as a key testing ground for different theoretical approaches and can help resolve debates about social evolution, parent-offspring conflict, genomic conflict, and levels of selection. Certain to become the defining book on the subject for the next generation of researchers, "Sex Allocation" explains why the study of sex allocation provides an ideal model system for advancing our understanding of the constraints on adaptation among all living things in the natural world.

ISBN 0691089647   Pages 482 ISBN13 9780691089645 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher Princeton University Press   Weight (grammes) 685 Imprint Princeton University Press   Published in New Jersey Format Paperback   Series title Monographs in Population Biology Publication date 08 Aug 2004   Height (mm) 229 Library of Congress 2009014756   Width (mm) 152 DEWEY 576.855   Spine width (mm) 33 DEWEY edition DC21   Academic level Undergraduate, Postgraduate, Professional / Scholarly

1		Sex Allocation		1
2		The Dusing-Fisher Theory of Equal Investment		14
3		Interactions between Relatives I: Cooperation and Competition		33
4		Interactions between Relatives II: Local Mate Competition		73
5		Interactions between Relatives III: Extended Local Mate Competition Theory		109
6		Conditional Sex Allocation I: Basic Scenarios		162
7		Conditional Sex Allocation II: Population Consequences and Further Complications		210
8		Sex Allocation When Generations Overlap		257
9		Conflict I: Between Individuals		276
10		Conflict II: Sex Allocation Distorters		316
		References		379
		Index		463

Understanding mating strategies and the allocation of resources to male versus female reproduction has long been a major goal of evolutionary studies. In this comprehensive synthesis, West makes several important contributions to the field of evolutionary biology... Because the work primarily focuses on how natural selection shapes sex allocation for given sex determination systems, sex allocation is proven an important phenomenon for studying adaptation. This thorough conceptual perspective, blending theory and data, summarizes sex allocation theory and how different areas are applied to different organisms. -- "Choice

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