Every individual of a species has the same sorts of chromosomes, with one exception. In many species, the way the sexes differ is that males have their own sex chromosome, the Y chromosome.
This contains genes which result in the development of male characters and reproductive organs. If there is no Y chromosome, the organism will be a female.
In birds, however, the situation is different. It is the females which have a unique sex chromosome - the W chromosome.
Researchers show that, surprisingly enough, a bird's W chromosome does not contain genes that lead to the development of a female.
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The W chromosome seems instead to function as some kind of buffer for females since it contains genes similar to those in the X chromosome.
In order for certain genes to work, it is critical that an individual has two copies of that gene. In this way, the W chromosome can serve as a complement for females who only have one copy of the X chromosome.
"This is because it is only inherited on the maternal side and fewer mutations arise in females than in males," said Ellegren.
Most mutations occur during the formation of germ cells. Males produce a vastly greater number of germ cells than females and so the probability that a sperm contains a new mutation is much greater than for an egg cell.
The W chromosome is the only chromosome from the cell nucleus which is inherited on the maternal side. It shares this property with the small amount of DNA found in cell mitochondria.