Population dynamics and the evolution of sex-determination in lemmings

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Abstract
SUMMARY: The hypothesis is advanced that the evolutionary stability of the unusual sex-determining mechanisms of the Wood Lemming (Myopus schisticolor) and of the Varying Lemming (Dicrostonyx torquatus) is a direct consequence of certain characteristic features of their population dynamics, and that these include phases of unrestrained population growth and of mass dispersal. Computer simulations confirm the feasibility of such an explanation. Predictions of this hypothesis are found to differ in a potentially testable manner from those of the ‘inbreeding’ hypothesis of Stenseth (1978). The demonstration of such a direct link between population ecology and evolutionary genetics would, if substantiated, be exceptional in mammals.