caa a22 4500 386400571 CHVBK 20180307112157.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130e198906 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1017/S0031182000061412 doi S0031182000061412 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.1017/S0031182000061412 Schall J. J. Department of Zoology, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont 05405, USA The sex ratio of Plasmodium gametocytes [Elektronische Daten] [J. J. Schall] Sex ratio theory usually predicts an equilibrium sex ratio and equal proportions of males and females in a population, including the progenitors of the reproductive cells of protozoans. This proposal was tested with three species of malarial parasites of lizards, Plasmodium mexicanum of the western fence lizard, and P. agamae and P. giganteum of the African rainbow lizard, using single samples from naturally infected lizards, repeated samples from free-ranging lizards (P. mexicanum only), and repeated samples from laboratory maintained animals. Macrogametocytes were usually more abundant than microgametocytes, and were slightly larger, revealing a typically greater investment of resources by the progenitors of female reproductive cells. However, the proportion of microgametocytes varied among the three species and among infections within each species of Plasmodium. The sex ratio of gametocytes often remained constant within infections followed over time even if the absolute number of gametocytes was changing. However, the equilibrium sex ratio of gametocytes varied among those infections that had an unchanging microgametocyte proportion. Thus, although an equilibrium sex ratio apparently occurs for most infections, there appears to be no characteristic proportion of microgametocytes for any of the species. Potential explanations for this conflict with theory are presented. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989 Plasmodium nationallicence gametocytes nationallicence sex ratio nationallicence lizard malaria nationallicence Parasitology Cambridge University Press 98/3(1989-06), 343-350 0031-1820 98:3<343 1989 98 PAR https://doi.org/10.1017/S0031182000061412 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0031182000061412 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Schall J. J. Department of Zoology, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont 05405, USA NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Parasitology Cambridge University Press 98/3(1989-06), 343-350 0031-1820 98:3<343 1989 98 PAR CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge