Experimental Demonstration That Offspring Sex Ratio Varies with Maternal Condition

Sex ratio theory predicts that, if prevailing ecological or social circumstances differentially influence the fitness benefits of offspring of each sex, parents should adjust their production accordingly to maximize fitness. For species in which sex is chromosomally determined, such as birds and mammals, a differential effect of maternal condition on the fitness of male and female young is one important route whereby selection is expected to favor a bias in the offspring sex ratio at birth or egg laying. However, despite its central place in sex allocation theory, this hypothesis has rarely been tested in wild populations. We manipulated maternal condition upward and downward in a sexually dimorphic wild bird and examined the effect on offspring survival and on offspring sex ratio. The survival to fledging of male, but not female, young was substantially reduced if they came from less well provisioned eggs produced by females in relatively poor condition. As female condition, and thereby her capacity to produce high quality eggs, declined, she progressively skewed the sex ratio of her eggs toward females; i.e., she produced more of the sex with the higher survival prospects. The decline in the survival of male offspring, and the sex ratio bias, was removed when maternal condition was enhanced. These results provide experimental evidence of an adaptive, facultative adjustment of sex ratio in response to changes in maternal condition in wild birds.