Genetic Influences on Human Fertility and Sexuality Theoretical and Empirical Contributions from the Biological and Behavioral Sciences

Recent work in quantitative biology has shown theoretically why Fisher's Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection does not preclude genetic influences on fertility, sexuality, and related processes. Genetic Influences on Human Fertility and Sexuality takes the next step, and presents a number of successful empirical searches for such genetic influence on a broad range of processes, such as puberty, marriage, sexual behavior, and twinning. Employing a broad range of methodological approaches, including molecular and behavioral genetics, this book weaves a new theoretical framework that shows how genes can help relate fertility planning to fertility outcome, and how puberty, sexuality, marriage, and reproduction can be conceptually linked through the genes that contribute to individual differences in the human process.

I Introductory Comments from a Biological Scientist.- II Introductory Comments from a Social Scientist.- I Genetic Influences on Fertility Motivation and Fertility Outcomes.- 1 Evolutionary Causes of GeneticVariation In Fertility and Other Fitness Components.- 2 Genetic Influences on Childbearing Motivation: Further Testing a Theoretical Framework.- 3 Genetic Influences on Fertility Behavior: Findings From a Danish Twin Study, 1910-1923.- 4 Genetic and Environmental Influences on Fertility Expectations and Outcomes using NLSY Kinship Data.- 5 A Heritability Study of Childbearing MotivationTargetID.- Commentary Commentary on Chapters 1-5.- II Genetic Influences on Pubertal Development and Reproductive Strategies.- 6 Conditional and Alternative Reproductive Strategies: Individual Differences in Susceptibility to Rearing Experience.- 7 Environmental and Genetic Influences on Pubertal Development: Evolutionary Life History Traits?.- 8 Behavior Genetic Modeling of Menarche in U.S. Females.- 9 Early Family Environment, Reproductive Strategy, and Contraceptive Behavior: Testing a Genetic Hypothesis.- Commentary Commentary on Chapters 6-9.- III Genetic Influences on Sexuality, Marriage. and Reproduction.- 10 The Genetics of Human Sexual Orientation.- 11 Endophenotypes for Marital Status in the NAS-NRC Twin Registry.- 12 Age at First Childbirth: A Major Selective Factor for Psychiatric Genes in the Twentieth Century.- 13 Twinning, Fertility, and the Opportunity for Natural Selection in a Micronesian Island Population.- 14 Associations between the Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase Gene (NOS3), Reproductive Behaviors, and Twinning.- Commentary Commentary on Chapters 10-14.

Joseph Lee Rodgers is a Robert Glenn Rapp Foundation Presidential Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA.