Abstract
Contingency (or “luck”) in early life plays an important role in shaping individuals’ development. By comparing the developmental trajectories of functionally genetically identical free-living mice who either experienced high levels of resource competition (males) or did not (females), we show that competition magnifies early contingency. Male resource competition results in a feedback loop that magnifies the importance of early contingency and pushes individuals onto divergent, self-reinforcing life trajectories, while the same process appears absent in females. Our results indicate that the strength of sexual selection may be self-limiting, and they highlight the potential for contingency to lead to differences in life outcomes, even in the absence of any underlying differences in ability (“merit”).
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 81-85 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | Science |
Volume | 387 |
Issue number | 6729 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 3 2025 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- General