Women's height, reproductive success and the evolution of sexual dimorphism in modern humans
Women's height, reproductive success and the evolution of sexual dimorphism in modern humans
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DOI：
10.1098/rspb.2002.2111
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发表时间：
2002-09-22
影响因子：
4.7
通讯作者：
Nettle, D
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Nettle, D
最近的研究表明，在当代人群中，高个子男性比矮个子男性有更大的生殖成功。这似乎是因为它们吸引配偶的能力更强。据我们所知，目前还没有关于女性的类似结果的报道。这项研究使用了英国国家儿童发展研究的数据，调查了一组具有全国代表性的女性的生活史。身高与生殖成功的相关性很弱，但显著相关。这种关系是U型的，赤字出现在身高的两极。这种情况在很大程度上是由于极高和极矮女性的健康状况不佳造成的。然而，最大的生殖成功率被发现低于女性的平均身高。因此，在这一群体中，选择似乎有性干扰，倾向于高个子男性和矮个子女性。随着进化时间的推移，这种情况往往会维持性别二型性。男性不会像女性那样把身高作为积极的择偶标准。有人认为，这有很好的进化原因，因为男性倾向于生育的迹象，而女性的身高与性成熟年龄呈正相关，并不是这样的迹象。
Recent studies have shown that, in contemporary populations, tall men have greater reproductive success than shorter men. This appears to be due to their greater ability to attract mates. To our knowledge, no comparable results have yet been reported for women. This study used data from Britain's National Child Development Study to examine the life histories of a nationally representative group of women. Height was weakly but significantly related to reproductive success. The relationship was U-shaped, with deficits at the extremes of height. This pattern was largely due to poor health among extremely tall and extremely short women. However, the maximum reproductive success was found below the mean height for women. Thus, selection appears to be sexually disruptive in this population, favouring tall men and short women. Over evolutionary time, such a situation tends to maintain sexual dimorphism. Men do not use stature as a positive mate-choice criterion as women do. It is argued that there is good evolutionary reason for this, because men are orientated towards cues of fertility, and female height, being positively related to age of sexual maturity, is not such a cue.