Do girls or boys suffer more severely from malnutrition during their juvenile stages? Tiit Teder attempted to answer this question through a meta-analysis of previously published data for insects. His study, published in the prestigious journal Ecology Letters, shows that female insects suffer slightly more than males; fewer females survive to adulthood when exposed to nutritional deprivation. The results also suggest that this is partly due to sexual dimorphism in body size. In insects, females are typically larger, and therefore have higher nutritional requirements during their growth. Congratulations, Tiit!
