Seminar	EVOLUTION OF SEX-DETERMINATION MECHANISMS	Animal Biology
Date	Jun 17-20, 2009
Organisers	C. Wedekind, N. Perrin. LJ Lawson Handley
Site	La Sage (VS)
Theme	Sex determination (SD) can be achieved through an impressive diversity of mechanisms. Many species (including some fish and reptiles) display environmental sex determination (with a switch determined by e.g. temperature, age, social cues, etc). If genetic, SD may be polygenic (many genes on different chromosomes) or monogenic (one single master gene). The latter case may lead to the evolution of highly differentiated sex chromosomes (as observed in birds or mammals), but not necessarily so (many fish and amphibians). What are the mechanisms underlying alternative sex determination pathways, what are their costs and benefits (in particular regarding sex-ratio production), what are their consequences in terms of demographic processes or genomic evolution? What selective forces drive transitions among systems, which seem frequent on an evolutionary time scale? These main questions (and others) will be addressed during a 3-days meeting, for which we will invite about six senior scientists covering wide areas of these topics. Participants active in these areas will have the opportunity to present their work More info on “Seminar/Events” at http://www.unil.ch/dee/
Requirements
Deadline	Mar 01, 2009
Comments		Go to registration

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