Sex Ratio of White-Tailed Deer and the Estrus Cycle

Verme, Louis; Ozoga, John

Deviations from the theoretical 50:50 sex ratio in many vertebrates studied have elicited considerable comment concerning their evolutionary or adaptive significance, speculation about physiological mechanisms involved, and skepticism that such perturbations arise solely by chance. Various hypotheses have been proposed to account for sexratio modification (e.g., Fisher 1930, Trivers and Willard 1973, Meyers 1978, Roberts 1978, Werren and Charnov 1978), although the subject remains controversial. Most sex-ratio data reported for whitetailed deer ( Odocoileus virginia nus) involve free-roaming populations whose innate characteristics are at best uncertain, and few have been derived from controlled experiments on captive animals (Verme 1965, 1969). In the course of devising a technique for detecting the onset of estrus in penned whitetails (Ozoga and Verme 1975), we noticed that the relative time during estrus that a doe mated apparently influenced the sex of her progeny. The prospects of documenting this intriguing temporal relationship prompted us to investigate the matter further. This paper presents the findings of this study and a discussion of the ecological implications

Sex Ratio of White-Tailed Deer and the Estrus Cycle

Series