6533b820fe1ef96bd12798f1

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Physiological problems of teleost ambisexuality

subject

description

The normal occurrence of spontaneous sex inversion among teleosts is a recent item within current concepts on vertebrate reproductive physiology. Investigations on the subject are mostly descriptive and deal with morphological and behavioral aspects. The concept of social control of sex inversion has been received with great interest. However, research on physiological processes that take place inside a fish when it changes sex must be rated as fragmentary. Steroid hormones are supposed to play a major role in sex inversion. But a cause and effect relationship has not yet been established. More experimental studies on more types of ambisexual species are badly needed. Future work will show whether recent findings on H-Y antigen might open a new approach to answering some of our questions.