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Females don't have chromosome Y, they have two chromosome X's. Therefore they don't get any Y stuff. And a mutation in one chromosome X can be mitigated by a n
by RocketSyntax 7y ago
Females don't have chromosome Y, they have two chromosome X's.
Therefore they don't get any Y stuff. And a mutation in one chromosome X can be mitigated by a non-mutation in the other chromosome X.
- prlambert 7y agoBut they get two different X chromosomes with (hopefully) no correlation between them. Mutation interactions are complex.
- RocketSyntax 7y agoLook into zygosity. Variants are either heterozygous or homozygous. A heterozygous variant is far less worse than a homozygous variant because the correct protein can still be produced to a certain extent.
- tveita 7y agoIf this is a factor you should see the opposite pattern in birds.
- chongli 7y agoThat’s a great point. It may be very hard to see though. Male birds tend to be the ones with bright, showy plumage. They also tend to spend the most effort in courtship, with the Bowerbird [1] being the most extreme example. Since bright colours, elaborate songs, and other courtship displays tend to make male birds more vulnerable to predation, I would hypothesize that male birds also have greater trait variability due to all this risk taking. It would make for an interesting study anyway. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowerbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowerbird
- SamReidHughes 7y agoIt has been studied. Body size is more variable in female birds.