Latest analysis with HormoneBase: What causes variation in testosterone?

Jerry Husak recently led an analysis of traits associated with variation in testosterone across vertebrates, published in Evolution in May 2021. Check out the paper here, and the abstract below:

Endocrine systems act as key intermediaries between organisms and their environments. This interaction leads to high variability in hormone levels, but we know little about the ecological factors that influence this variation within and across major vertebrate groups. We study this topic by assessing how various social and environmental dynamics influence testosterone levels across the entire vertebrate tree of life. Our analyses show that breeding season length and mating system are the strongest predictors of average testosterone concentrations, whereas breeding season length, environmental temperature, and variability in precipitation are the strongest predictors of within-population variation in testosterone. Principles from small-scale comparative studies that stress the importance of mating opportunity and competition on the evolution of species differences in testosterone levels, therefore, likely apply to the entire vertebrate lineage. Meanwhile, climatic factors associated with rainfall and ambient temperature appear to influence variability in plasma testosterone, within a given species. These results, therefore, reveal how unique suites of ecological factors differentially explain scales of variation in circulating testosterone across mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes.

HormoneBase Symposium at SICB

20180105_145951In January 2018, several members of the HormoneBase Consortium (and friends!) presented a series of talks at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology.  A list of talks in the symposium, entitled “Understanding the Evolution of Endocrine System Variation Through Large-Scale Comparative Analyses” can be found here.  We also had an exciting complementary session of talks exploring comparative analyses of hormones, and a several terrific posters in the complementary poster session.

Stay tuned for our special issue in the journal ICB, summarizing the results presented in this symposium!

HormoneBase comes to SICB!

On January 5, 2018, the HormoneBase Consortium will lead a one-day symposium at the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology meeting in San Francisco on “Understanding the evolution of endocrine system variation through large-scale comparative analyses.” In addition to the invited speakers in the symposium, additional talks and posters on the evolution of hormones will be presented in companion sessions. Check out the details here!