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:
“If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)