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?Women: crazy? or simply DIVERSE!?
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By fishes, Section Biology
Posted on Fri Apr 30th, 2010 at 12:20:21 PM PST
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PRELUDE:
Men in movies, TV shows and even at the local pubs have been caught numerous times saying things like, "man, girls, they're crazy", or a permutation of such. In our culture, there is no generation gap when it comes to males bonding about females' 'unpredictability'. We hear terms like, "she's always moving the goal post", when describing a woman's tendency to change her opinion on various domestic and non-domestic issues.
The dichotomy between male and female reproductive interests in primates have been of interest to researchers for quite some time (Muller and Wrangham, 2009). The male-male competition hypothesis was set forth years ago and has been addressed in a number of recent novels (Ridley, 2000, Ridley, 2003, Dawkins, 2006).
As a consequence of this male-male competition, it is logical to suggest that an evolutionary pressure has been placed on human males.
Let us use a concrete example for illustration purposes. Men were the 'working' sex for numerous generations. From taking on the role of "the hunter" in hunter-gatherer societies, to ruling agricultural empires in the days of monarchies (still happening in parts of the world), and until recently, occupying the majority of high-power positions in the corporate world. It can be argued that a particular type of man - one who could provide for a family - was evolutionarily selected for.
Females on the other hand, were child bearers. If a man had enough resources to care for her and her children, she was (presumably) up for taking on the role. Females were not able to be as choosey at this point. If a man had the resources and chose her, she was "lucky".
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| HYPOTHESIS:
I propose that until recently, there has not been as stringent a selection on females as males. As a result, our current population is made up of males who are more genetically close to one another than are females.
STUDY:
I propose to collect DNA from thousands, maybe millions of males and females, and sequence male Y-chromosomes and female mitochondrial genomes using next-generation sequencing (illumina).
All samples will be of European descent (as these cultural statements made above are from a western point of view) and will be made anonymous.
A two-way comparison will be made between the variation among female mitochondrial DNA and among male Y chromosome DNA. In other words, the within-population variation will be compared between sexes.
I understand that there is much more sequence present in the mitochondrial genome of the female than the Y-chromosome of the male. To address this issue, the comparison will be normalized by using a greater number of male than female samples so the number of comparisons can be more similar. Also, bonferonni correction will be applied to both sexes and as a result, there will be more stringent statistics applied to female DNA (use smaller cut-off P values).
I also understand that there is a 'pseudoautosomal region' on the Y chromosome (Rouyer et al. 1996), which would be vulnerable to admixture with female DNA. This region will not be included.
REFERENCES:
Dawkins R. (2006) "The Selfish Gene", Oxford printing press.
Muller MN and Wrangham RW. (2009) "Sexual coercion in primates and humans: An evolutionary perspective on male aggression against females", Harvard College.
Ridley M. (2000) "Genome", Harper Perennial printing co.
Ridley M. (2003) "The red queen", Harper Perennial printing co.
Rouyer F, Simmler M, Johnsson C, Vergnaud G, Cooke H, Weissenbach J. (1986), Nature, 319:291 - 295.
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