Museum records indicate male bias in pollinators of sexually deceptive orchids

AbstractOver 130 X-linked genes have been robustly associated with developmental disorders, and X-linked causes have been hypothesised to underlie the higher developmental disorder rates in males. Here, we evaluate the burden of X-linked coding variation in 11,044 developmental disorder patients, and find a similar rate of X-linked causes in males and females (6.0% and 6.9%, respectively), indicating that such variants do not account for the 1.4-fold male bias. We develop an improved strategy to detect X-linked developmental disorders and identify 23 significant genes, all of which were previously known, consistent with our inference that the vast majority of the X-linked burden is in known developmental disorder-associated genes. Importantly, we estimate that, in male probands, only 13% of inherited rare missense variants in known developmental disorder-associated genes are likely to be pathogenic. Our results demonstrate that statistical analysis of large datasets can refine our understanding of modes of inheritance for individual X-linked disorders.

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Elevated Temperature Applied during Gonadal Transformation Leads to Male Bias in Zebrafish (Danio rerio)

Sexual Development ◽

10.1159/000336297 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 6 (4) ◽

pp. 201-209 ◽

Cited By ~ 29

Author(s):

H. Abozaid ◽

S. Wessels ◽

G. Hörstgen-Schwark

Keyword(s):

Elevated Temperature ◽

Danio Rerio ◽

Male Bias

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Reducing a Male Bias in Language? Establishing the Efficiency of Three Different Gender-Fair Language Strategies

Sex Roles ◽

10.1007/s11199-018-0974-9 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 81 (1-2) ◽

pp. 109-117 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Anna Lindqvist ◽

Emma Aurora Renström ◽

Marie Gustafsson Sendén

Keyword(s):

Male Bias ◽

Language Strategies

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The male bias of a masculine generic pronoun: Evidence from eye-tracking and sentence evaluation

10.31234/osf.io/84sf7 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Theresa Redl ◽

Stefan L. Frank ◽

Peter de Swart ◽

Helen de Hoop

Keyword(s):

Eye Tracking ◽

Language Processing ◽

Possessive Pronoun ◽

Male Bias ◽

Gender Information

Two experiments tested whether the Dutch possessive pronoun zijn ‘his’ gives rise to a gender inference and thus causes a male bias when used generically in sentences such as Everyone was putting on his shoes. Experiment 1 (N = 120, 48 male) was a conceptual replication of a previous eye-tracking study that had not found evidence of a male bias. The results of the current eye-tracking experiment showed the masculine generic pronoun to trigger a gender inference and cause a male bias, but for male participants and in neutral stereotype contexts only. No evidence for a male bias was thus found in stereotypically female and male contexts and for female participants altogether. Experiment 2 (N = 80, 40 male) used the same stimuli as Experiment 1, but employed the sentence evaluation paradigm. No evidence of a male bias was found in Experiment 2. Taken together, the results suggest that the masculine generic pronoun zijn ‘his’ can cause a male bias for male participants when no other gender information is provided, but only surfaces with a method such as eye-tracking, which taps directly into automatic language processing. Furthermore, the results suggest that the intended generic reading of the masculine possessive pronoun zijn ‘his’ is readily available for women.

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Increased male bias in eider ducks can be explained by sex-specific survival of prime-age breeders

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0195415 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 13 (4) ◽

pp. e0195415 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Satu Ramula ◽

Markus Öst ◽

Andreas Lindén ◽

Patrik Karell ◽

Mikael Kilpi

Keyword(s):

Male Bias

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Identification of (Z)-8-Heptadecene and n-Pentadecane as Electrophysiologically Active Compounds in Ophrys insectifera and Its Argogorytes Pollinator

International Journal of Molecular Sciences ◽

10.3390/ijms21020620 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 21 (2) ◽

pp. 620 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Björn Bohman ◽

Alyssa M. Weinstein ◽

Raimondas Mozuraitis ◽

Gavin R. Flematti ◽

Anna-Karin Borg-Karlson

Keyword(s):

Carboxylic Acid ◽

Sex Pheromone ◽

Ethyl Oleate ◽

Ethyl Linoleate ◽

Insect Species ◽

Active Compounds ◽

Headspace Volatile ◽

Pollinator Species ◽

Sexually Deceptive Orchids ◽

Specific Species

Sexually deceptive orchids typically depend on specific insect species for pollination, which are lured by sex pheromone mimicry. European Ophrys orchids often exploit specific species of wasps or bees with carboxylic acid derivatives. Here, we identify the specific semiochemicals present in O. insectifera, and in females of one of its pollinator species, Argogorytes fargeii. Headspace volatile samples and solvent extracts were analysed by GC-MS and semiochemicals were structurally elucidated by microderivatisation experiments and synthesis. (Z)-8-Heptadecene and n-pentadecane were confirmed as present in both O. insectifera and A. fargeii female extracts, with both compounds being found to be electrophysiologically active to pollinators. The identified semiochemicals were compared with previously identified Ophrys pollinator attractants, such as (Z)-9 and (Z)-12-C27-C29 alkenes in O. sphegodes and (Z)-9-octadecenal, octadecanal, ethyl linoleate and ethyl oleate in O. speculum, to provide further insights into the biosynthesis of semiochemicals in this genus. We propose that all these currently identified Ophrys semiochemicals can be formed biosynthetically from the same activated carboxylic acid precursors, after a sequence of elongation and decarbonylation reactions in O. sphegodes and O. speculum, while in O. insectifera, possibly by decarbonylation without preceding elongation.

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