Complex effects of sex reversal on reproductive success in wild frogs

Bókony, Veronika and Balogh, Emese and Ujhegyi, Nikolett and Mikó, Zsanett and Kásler, Andrea and Ujszegi, János and Hettyey, Attila and Herczeg, Dávid and Papp, Tibor and Nemesházi, Edina (2026) Complex effects of sex reversal on reproductive success in wild frogs. SCIENCE ADVANCES, 12 (36). No. eaeg3488. ISSN 2375-2548

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Abstract

Sex reversal, when the environment overrides genotypic sex determination, may hasten or delay climate-driven extinction in ectothermic animals, depending on sex-reversed individuals’ reproductive ability and offspring viability. Empirically, next to nothing is known about these traits in natural populations. Here, we present a comprehensive dataset of wild frogs to compare sex-reversed and sex-concordant males for fertility, attractiveness to females, intrasexual competitiveness, and offspring survival in various environments. We demonstrate uncompromised potential of sex-reversed males to mate and produce viable offspring, which are all genotypic females but have increased sex-reversal propensity. However, sex-reversed males realize reduced paternity in natural populations, possibly due to cryptic female choice. Furthermore, offspring of sex-reversed sires exhibit increased vulnerability to viral infection after heat stress. Our theoretical model predicts that these handicaps of sex-reversed males compromise their ability to compensate by producing female offspring for climate-driven male bias in phenotypic sex ratios, which reduces population viability. Therefore, sex reversal exacerbates the biodiversity consequences of environmental change.

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