Average Sex Ratio and Population Maintenance Cost

Número: 
11
Ano: 
2010
Autor: 
Eduardo Garibaldi
Marcelo Sobottka
Abstract: 

The ratio of males to females in a population is a meaningful characteristic of sexual species. The reason for this biological property be available to the observers of nature seems to be a question never asked. Introducing the notion of historically adapted populations as global minimizers of maintenance cost functions, we propose a theoretical explanation for the reported stability of this feature. This mathematical formulation suggests that sex ratio could be considered as an indirect result shaped by the antagonism between the size of the population and the finiteness of resources.

Keywords: 
sex ratio
cost function
finite-resource environment
population dynamics
Mathematics Subject Classification 2000 (MSC 2000): 
37N25; 92D15; 92D25;
Arquivo: