ENVIRONMENTAL SEX DETERMINATION IN REPTILES

In recent years, representatives of more than 40 families of reptiles have been studied to understand how environmental parameters affect se x determination. In this review, we summarise the distribution and tax onomic pattern of sex determining mechanisms, outline the main hypothe ses of the adaptive significance of temperature sex determination (TSD ), and of skewed population sex ratios. We also examine the competing hypotheses of the physiological and molecular mechanisms involved in T SD. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.