MacLeod, Kristy J.Clutton-Brock, Tim H.2013-09-162013-09-162013-03MacLeod, KJ & Clutton-Brock, TH 2013, 'No evidence for adaptive sex ratio variation in the cooperatively breeding meerkat, Suricata suricatta', Animal Behaviour, vol. 85, no. 3, pp. 645-653.0003-3472 (print)1095-8282(online)10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.12.028http://hdl.handle.net/2263/31733Where a maternal trait influences the fitness of sons or daughters, mothers would be expected to bias the sex ratio towards the sex whose fitness they are more able to increment. In many polygynous species, maternal characteristics affect the fitness of sons more than that of daughters, but, in meerkats, variance in female reproductive success exceeds variance in male reproductive success and maternal rank affects the success of daughters more than sons. Dominant females would therefore be expected to produce an excess of daughters, a reversal of the hypothesis’ usual predictions. In a long-term data set, despite a strong effect of maternal rank on daughters’ success, we found no indication that dominant females produce female-biased litters. Offspring sex ratios did not deviate significantly from equality, and were also unaffected by maternal mass, age or number of previous litters produced in the same season. We suggest that potential advantages to both mother and offspring of producing and developing in mixed litters may result in the adaptive maintenance of an equal offspring sex ratio.en© 2013 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Notice : this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Animal Behaviour.Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Animal Behaviour, vol. 85, no. 3, 2013. doi.: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.12.028Maternal dominanceMeerkat (Suricata suricatta)Offspring sex ratio variationPostprint Article