Vertebrate sexual systems

ResearchBlogging.org Awesome figure of the sexual systems used by 2,145 vertebrates species (705 fish, 173 amphibian, 593 non-avian reptilian, 195 avian, 479 mammalian).

Similar figures for plants and invertebrates.


Tree structure is derived from taxonomy, where each tip represents all species in a single genus. 
Diploid chromosome number is indicated by the height of the innermost ring.
The XY/ZW ring is colored blue for XY and red for ZW taxa.
ESD = environmental sex determination.
The ‘Other’ ring includes parthenogenesis, gynogenesis, and hybridogenesis.
Complex SCS indicates species with complex sex chromosome karyotypes (e.g., X1X2Y).

  • All mammals are XY.
  • All birds are ZW.
  • Half-ish of all fish and no other vertebrates are hermaphrodites.
  • Only some fish and some reptiles are environmentally sex determined.

Reference
Ashman, T., Bachtrog, D., Blackmon, H., Goldberg, E., Hahn, M., Kirkpatrick, M., Kitano, J., Mank, J., Mayrose, I., Ming, R., Otto, S., Peichel, C., Pennell, M., Perrin, N., Ross, L., Valenzuela, N., and Vamosi, J. (2014). Tree of Sex: A database of sexual systems Scientific Data, 1 DOI: 10.1038/sdata.2014.15

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