Abstract:
Adaptive theory predicts that mothers would be advantaged by adjusting the sex ratio of their offspring in relation to their
offspring’s future reproductive success. In the present study, we tested the effect of housing mice under crowded condition
on the sex ratio and whether the fat content of the diet has any influence on the outcome of pregnancies. Three-week-old mice were placed on the control diet (NFD) for 3 weeks. Thereafter the mice were allotted randomly to two groups of 7
cages each with 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16 mice in every cage to create increasing crowding gradient and fed either NFD or
high fat diet (HFD). After 4 weeks, dams were bred and outcomes of pregnancy were analyzed. The average dam body weight (DBW) at conception, litter size (LS) and SR were significantly higher in HFD fed dams. Further, male biased litters declined with increasing crowding in NFD group but not in HFD. The LS and SR in NFD declined significantly with increasing
crowding, whereas only LS was reduced in HFD group. We conclude that female mice housed under overcrowding conditions shift offspring SR in favor of daughters in consistent with the TW hypothesis and high fat diet reduces this influence of overcrowding.
