Hermaphroditism: What's not to like?

Hermaphroditism: What's not to like?

Hermaphroditism is rare and phylogenically in decline among animal species. The evolutionary basis for this development is not well understood. This paper focusses on self-incompatible simultaneous hermaphroditism in animals. It proposes that such hermaphroditism is not stable in sufficiently heterogeneous populations, suggesting a possible reason for why hermaphroditism is rare among evolved a...

Hermaphroditism

Rapid Survey of Wasting and Stunting in Children: Whats New, Whats Old and Whats the Buzz?

Nationwide Rapid Survey on Children (RSoC), conducted by the Ministry of Women and Child Development and UNICEF in 2013-14 showed a marked improvement in the status of the child malnutrition over the third National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) that was conducted in 2005-06. Despite some impressive gains in the anthropometric indicators of malnutrition, the absolute levels remain high, and of c...

Child with True Hermaphroditism

True hermaphrodites possess both ovarian and testicular tissues which may be present in separate gonads or combined in an ovotestis. External and internal genitalia are ambiguous and variable, though a prominent penial structure is usual. Chromosome examination of true hermaphroditism has revealed an XX sex chromosome complement in the majority of cases, but the XY complement and different mosa...

Hermaphrodism: What’s not to Like?

Male and female social roles are predicated on the fact that male and female reproductive functions are separated in different individuals. This paper asks why. That is, why is gonochorism, not hermaphroditism, the rule among vertebrates. We argue that (simultaneous) hermaphroditism may be unstable in the face of heterogeneity. Building on the Bateman principle – access to eggs, not sperm, limi...