The researchers then studied what the crickets would eat when given a choice in diet. Instead of selecting food in a sex-specific manner, males and females ate a "compromise" diet that benefited neither sex. "It is rather surprising because they are not doing what they are supposed to do," Maklakov said. "In crickets, males and females do not seem to be able to fully resolve the sexual conflict over what to eat." For the females the compromise is costly, resulting in a 30 percent reduction in egg production, he said. The researchers believe the compromise is due to the failure of some gender-dependent traits to evolve. The sexes share most of their genes, which constrains the evolution of sex differences since the same genes in both sexes are likely to be responsible for a given trait. Rob Brooks, director of the Evolution and Ecology Research Center and a co-author of the study, said the results show more attention needs to be given to individual diets in terms of their sex and reproductive stage. "It underlines the important lesson that what we want to eat, or if you like, are programmed to eat, is not necessarily best for us," Brook said. Although humans and crickets are completely different organisms, the study does have ramifications for people, added Brooks. "It's the first time this kind of [gender difference in diet] has been shown," he said. "Humans are even more fundamentally different between males and females than crickets are, he added. "In human reproduction the men's role is relatively trivial [while] for women bringing a baby safely to term requires tremendous amounts of energy, and diet is very important. "What men and women need to eat might be more dramatically different than we had realized," he said. "However, men and women eat very similar diets, and our results suggest our tastes and food preferences could be a shared compromise as they are in crickets." Related Links: |
advertisement
Download Animal News at Bottom!
|
-
our sites
-
video
mobile
-
shop
-
stay connected
-
corporate
