Advances in our understanding of mammalian sex‐biased dispersal

By Lori Lawson Handley, Nicolas Perrin. Molecular Ecology, 2007

644 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Sex‐biased dispersal is an almost ubiquitous feature of mammalian life history, but the evolutionary causes behind these patterns still require much clarification. A quarter of a century since the publication of seminal papers describing general patterns of sex‐biased dispersal in both mammals and birds, we review the advances in our theoretical understanding of the evolutionary causes of sex‐biased dispersal, and those in statistical genetics that enable us to test hypotheses and measure dispersal in natural populations. We use mammalian examples to illustrate patterns and proximate causes of sex‐biased dispersal, because by far the most data are available and because they exhibit an enormous diversity in terms of dispersal strategy, mating and social systems. Recent studies using molecular markers have helped to confirm that sex‐biased dispersal is widespread among mammals and varies widely in direction and intensity, but there is a great need to bridge the gap between genetic information, observational data and theory. A review of mammalian data indicates that the relationship between direction of sex‐bias and mating system is not a simple one. The role of social systems emerges as a key factor in determining intensity and direction of dispersal bias, but there is still need for a theoretical framework that can account for the complex interactions between inbreeding avoidance, kin competition and cooperation to explain the impressive diversity of patterns.

Subfields: Ecology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/852f93c6ac5add671eef46c2174e52b025cc7fa0

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In Ecology

In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

A. Fiore

Citations in the corpus

Evolution of sex-biased dispersal: The role of sex-specific dispersal costs, demographic stochasticity, and inbreeding (2008, background): “…(Clarke et al. 1997; Prugnolle and de Meeus 2002; Lawson Handley and Perrin 2007), but it is not fully understood what factors are responsible for the evolution of sex-biased dispersal as such and especially what determines which of the two sexes is more dispersive (Lawson Handley and Perrin 2007).”
Long-distance movements of little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) (2013, background): “Sex-biased movements of animals often result from selection pressures to minimize risk of inbreeding (Handley and Perrin 2007; Pusey and Wolf 1996) or to meet habitat requirements, which may vary for males versus females and/or during different life-history stages (Andrews et al. 2010; Bowler…”
Phylogeography and conservation of the bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) inferred from mitochondrial and microsatellite DNA (2011, background): “In general, molecular approaches have been very useful in determining the pattern and degree of population subdivision in a variety of species (Avise 2004; Bowen and Karl 2007; Handley and Perrin 2007; Rocha et al. 2008).”
Genetic Consequences of Habitat Fragmentation in Black-and-Gold Howler (Alouatta caraya) Populations from Northern Argentina (2010, background): “In areas with isolated fragments, dispersers may incur significant mortality costs when crossing unfavorable habitats to reach suitable patches (Lawson Handley and Perrin 2007).”
Dispersal patterns in sympatric woolly and spider monkeys: integrating molecular and observational data (2009, background): “the degree to which such gene flow is sex-biased (Goudet et al., 2002; Lawson Handley & Perrin, 2007; Di Fiore, 2008).”
Dispersal, philopatry, and the role of fission‐fusion dynamics in bottlenose dolphins (2013, neutral): “1 Lawson Handley and Perrin 2007).”