Premium
Testing Allsop and West’s size at sex change invariant within a fish species: a spurious ratio or a useful group descriptor?
Author(s) -
LINDE M.,
PALMER M.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of evolutionary biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.289
H-Index - 128
eISSN - 1420-9101
pISSN - 1010-061X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2008.01508.x
Subject(s) - biology , spurious relationship , sex ratio , invariant (physics) , sex change , trait , statistics , range (aeronautics) , taxon , fish <actinopterygii> , sample size determination , ecology , mathematics , demography , fishery , mathematical physics , population , materials science , composite material , sociology , computer science , programming language
Recently, it has been suggested that sequential hermaphrodites, from a variety of taxa and a wide range of sizes, change sex at the same relative size. It is said that there exists an invariant (a constant ratio) for such a life trait. However, recent criticisms point out that these results could be a statistical artefact. It has been argued that the wider the range of x ‐axis values (from 2 mm to 1.5 m in the case of sex change), the higher the probability of identifying an invariant by chance. Here, the invariance of the size at sex change ratio is analysed within a single fish species for which the size of sex change varies within a range of only 6.5 cm. Our results support the invariant rule that fishes change sex when reaching 79% of their maximum size.