The patriarch hypothesis : An alternative explanation of menopause.

摘要: Menopause is puzzling because life-history theory predicts there should be no selection for outliving one's reproductive capacity. Adaptive explanations of menopause offered thus far turn on women's long-term investment in offspring and grandoffspring, all variations the grandmother hypothesis. Here, I offer a very different explanation. The patriarch hypothesis proposes that once males became capable maintaining high status access beyond their peak physical condition, favored extension maximum life span males. Because relevant genes were not Y chromosome, increased females as well. However, female was constrained by depletion viable oocytes, which resulted menopause.