Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2012 Dec 23;8(6):976-8.
doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2012.0590. Epub 2012 Aug 8.

Intralocus sexual conflict over human height

Gert Stulp  1 , Bram Kuijper, Abraham P Buunk, Thomas V Pollet, Simon Verhulst
Affiliations

Intralocus sexual conflict over human height

Gert Stulp et al. Biol Lett. .

Abstract

Intralocus sexual conflict (IASC) occurs when a trait under selection in one sex constrains the other sex from achieving its sex-specific fitness optimum. Selection pressures on body size often differ between the sexes across many species, including humans: among men individuals of average height enjoy the highest reproductive success, while shorter women have the highest reproductive success. Given its high heritability, IASC over human height is likely. Using data from sibling pairs from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, we present evidence for IASC over height: in shorter sibling pairs (relatively) more reproductive success (number of children) was obtained through the sister than through the brother of the sibling pair. By contrast, in average height sibling pairs most reproductive success was obtained through the brother relative to the sister. In conclusion, we show that IASC over a heritable, sexually dimorphic physical trait (human height) affects Darwinian fitness in a contemporary human population.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Average height of the sibling pair (average over heights standardized per sex) and the number of children (mean residual ± s.e.) through the brother (filled circles) and the sister (open circles; see table 1 for controls; fitted lines calculated for means of covariates). The predicted optimum for males was exactly at average standardized sibling height (0). Height was divided in bins of 0.5 s.d. Bins ≤−2 and ≥2 were pooled. See electronic supplementary material, figure S2 for raw data.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Darwin C. 1871. The descent of man and selection in relation to sex. London, UK: John Murray
    1. Bonduriansky R., Chenoweth S. F. 2009. Intralocus sexual conflict. Trends Ecol. Evol. 24, 280–288 10.1016/j.tree.2008.12.005 (doi:10.1016/j.tree.2008.12.005) - DOI - PubMed
    1. van Doorn G. S. 2009. Intralocus sexual conflict. Ann. NY Acad. Sci. 1168, 52–71 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04573.x (doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04573.x) - DOI - PubMed
    1. Fairbairn D. J., Blanckenhorn W. U., Székely T. (eds) 2007. Sex, size and gender roles: evolutionary studies of sexual size dimorphism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press
    1. Cox R. M., Calsbeek R. 2009. Sexually antagonistic selection, sexual dimorphism, and the resolution of intralocus sexual conflict. Am. Nat. 187, 176–187 10.1086/595841 (doi:10.1086/595841) - DOI - PubMed

Publication types