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Current ecology, not ancestral dispersal patterns, influences menopause symptom severity

Yang, Y; Arnot, M; Mace, R; (2019) Current ecology, not ancestral dispersal patterns, influences menopause symptom severity. Ecology and Evolution 10.1002/ece3.5705. (In press). Green open access

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Abstract

All human females who reach midlife experience menopause, however, it is currently unclear why women experience this period of infertility, and why it is accompanied by many unpleasant symptoms. Using primary data from four ethnic groups in China, we test an existing theory that age of menopause and its symptoms are the result of intragenomic conflict between maternally and paternally inherited genes, with the outcome of such conflict predicted to be contingent on the ancestral postmarital residence pattern of the female (Úbeda, Ohtsuki, & Gardner, Ecology Letters, 17, 2014, 165). The model predicts that being ancestrally patrilocal results in less intragenomic conflict, causing a shorter, less symptomatic perimenopause that terminates in a later menopause. Our findings show no support for this hypothesis and suggest current, rather than ancestral, residence patterns better predict aspects of the menopausal transition. Furthermore, current patrilocality when compared to duolocality is associated with more severe menopause symptoms, which may be due to sexual, rather than intragenomic, conflict.

Type: Article
Title: Current ecology, not ancestral dispersal patterns, influences menopause symptom severity
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1002/ece3.5705
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5705
Language: English
Additional information: © 2019 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: ecology, intragenomic conflict, kinship, menopause, menopause symptoms, residence patterns
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Anthropology
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10085539
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