Thermosensitive Period (TSP)
The thermosensitive, or temperature-sensitive, period (TSP) is the point during development at which sex determination occurs in temperature-dependent sex determination systems, such as those present in alligators and turtles. Occurring during the middle third of incubation, the TSP lasts for 7–15 days, species-dependent. The temperature must be maintained during this time for a certain sex to be determined; oftentimes the differences between temperatures required to produce each sex are very slight and during the TSP, sex is susceptible to change with temperature. After this period, however, sex cannot be reversed (see sex reversal).
Read more about this topic: Temperature-dependent Sex Determination
Famous quotes containing the word period:
“After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)