The white-throated sparrow, a unique creature.
(Photo: Rhododendrites viaWikimedia Commons,CC BY-SA 4.0)
Sex in nature is hardly simple.
In the natural world, some specieschange their sexas they age.
The white-throated sparrow, a unique creature. (Photo: Rhododendrites viaWikimedia Commons,CC BY-SA 4.0)
Others such as the white-throated sparrow have a whopping four sexes or genotypes.
TheZonotrichia albicollis, or the white-throated sparrow, has white and tan morphs, or subspecies.
Females also trade off between investment in parental care and mating effort.
The species has four sexes. (Photo: Cephas viaWikimedia Commons,CC BY-SA 3.0)
The white and tan striped birds typically mate with individuals of the opposite color.
Within the white-striped birds, a gene mutation flipped a section of chromosome two creating a supergene.
This new punch in of chromosome cannot exchange genetic material with its mate.
A white-tan pairing has a 50% chance of inheriting the inverted gene.
Instead, the gene was more scrambled.
Sadly, Elaina Tuttle passed in 2016, shortly after the publication of her incredible paper.
Her discoveries continue to fascinate us.
One individual can only mate with one-quarter of the population.
There are very few sexual systems with more than two sexes.
This mating dance, however, is a lot of work.
Multi-sex species are not unique to sparrows.
One microbe hasseven sexes.
What is sure is that nature’s sexes are diverse and complex.
As the white-throated sparrow: There’s a lot more information left in these birds, Gonser says.
And I think Elaina would like that we’re trying to uncover their secrets.
The species has four sexes.
