First Analysis of Multiple Paternity in an Oviparous Shark, the Small-Spotted Catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula L.)

Griffiths, Andrew M.; Jacoby, David; Casañe, Didier; McHugh, Matthew; Croft, Darren P.; Genner, Martin J.; Sims, David

doi:10.1093/jhered/esr112

Cited by 43 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Our model thus extends the argument of 'convenience polyandry' [23,31] to a situation where the choice is not between mating once or multiple times, but between mating at all (once or multiple times) or reproducing parthenogenetically.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 70%

“…This offers the possibility of an interesting demographic feedback because of three interacting factors. First, male harassment, if costly enough, might make it beneficial for a female to accept opting for a sexual life cycle over an asexual one (this is akin to the argument of 'convenience polyandry' [23], according to which females might accept costly multiple matings, if the costs of resisting would be higher still). Second, the fitness consequences depend on how often females encounter males.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, we highlight the flipside of the coin: male encounters can be harmful, yet resisting them might only pay off sufficiently for females if mate encounters are not too frequent in the first place. If they are frequent, 'mating for convenience' becomes the favoured option, an argument similar to that of 'convenience polyandry', where females mate multiple times to avoid the costs of coercive behaviour by males [23]. The frequency of mate encounters depends not only on population density as a whole, but also on how often (other) females produce males, which in turn depends on the population-wide rates of sexual versus asexual reproduction.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sexual conflict and the evolution of asexuality at low population densities

Gerber

Kokko

2016

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Theories for the evolution of sex rarely include facultatively sexual reproduction. Sexual harassment by males is an underappreciated factor: it should at first sight increase the relative advantage of asexual reproduction by increasing the cost of sex. However, if the same females can perform either sexual or asexual life cycles, then females trying to reproduce asexually may not escape harassment. If resisting male harassment is costly, it might be beneficial for a female to accept a mating and undertake a sexual life cycle rather than 'insist' on an asexual one. We investigate the effects of sexual harassment on the maintenance of sex under different population densities. Our model shows that resisting matings pays off at low population densities, which leads to the complete extinction of males, and thus to the evolution of completely asexual populations. Facultative sex persists in a narrow range of slightly higher densities. At high densities, selection favours giving up resisting male mating attempts and thus sexual reproduction takes over. These interactions between the outcomes of sexual conflict and population density suggest an explanation for the rarity of facultative sex and also patterns of geographical parthenogenesis, where marginal environments with potentially low densities are associated with asexuality.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sexual conflict and the evolution of asexuality at low population densities

Gerber

Kokko

2016

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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“…However, females are known to store active sperm within the nidamentary, or shell-producing, gland: sperm are secreted alongside the albumen and egg case, ensuring fertilization of every egg produced (Metten 1939a, b). Laboratory-kept female S. canicula, maintained in isolation from males, have been observed to produce fertile eggs for periods up to at least 260 days (Griffiths et al 2012), and a closely related species, the chain catshark, S. retifer, has been recorded to produce viable eggs after 843 days in isolation (Castro et al 1988).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Year‐round sexual harassment as a behavioral mediator of vertebrate population dynamics

Wearmouth

Southall

Morritt

et al. 2012

Ecological Monographs

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Abstract. Within-species sexual segregation is a widespread phenomenon among vertebrates, but its causes remain a topic of much debate. Female avoidance of male coercive mating attempts has the potential to influence the social structure of animal populations, yet it has been largely overlooked as a driver of sexual separation. Indeed, its potential role in longterm structuring of natural populations has not been studied. Here we use a comparative approach to examine the suitability of multiple hypotheses forwarded to account for sexual segregation (i.e., activity budget, predation risk, thermal niche-fecundity, and social factors) as drivers underlying sex-specific habitat use in a monomorphic model vertebrate, the smallspotted catshark, Scyliorhinus canicula. Using this hypothesis-driven approach, we show that year-round sexual habitat segregation in S. canicula can be accounted for directly by female avoidance of male sexual harassment. Long-term electronic tracking reveals that spermstoring female catsharks form daytime refuging aggregations in shallow-water caves (;3.2 m water depth) and undertake nocturnal foraging excursions into deeper water (;25 m) on most nights. In contrast, males occupy deeper, cooler habitat (;18 m) by day and exploit a range of depths nocturnally (1-23 m). Males frequent the locations of shallow-water female refuges, apparently intercepting females for mating when they emerge from, and return to, refuges on foraging excursions. Females partly compensate for higher metabolic costs incurred when refuging in warmer habitat by remaining inactive; however, egg production rates decline in the warmest months, but refuging behavior is not abandoned. Thermal choice experiments confirm that individual females are willing to ''pay'' in energy terms to avoid aggressive males and unsolicited male mating attempts. Long-term evasion of sexual harassment influences both the social structure and fecundity of the study population, with females trading off potential injury and unsolicited matings with longer-term fitness. This identifies sexual harassment as a persistent cost to females that can mediate vertebrate population dynamics.

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“…Sperm storage often occurs in animals that have copulations with multiple males ('multiple paternity'), where the combination can create selective advantages (e.g. Vonhof et al, 2006;Fedina and Lewis, 2008;Griffiths et al, 2012). Indeed, in some species, fertile eggs of different ages fathered by different males can coexist in a female's oviduct.…”

Section: Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epigenetics as a source of variation in comparative animal physiology – or – Lamarck is lookin' pretty good these days

Burggren

2014

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Considerable variation is inherent both within and between comparative physiological data sets. Known sources for such variation include diet, gender, time of day and season of experiment, among many other factors, but a meta-analysis of physiological studies shows that surprisingly few studies report controlling for these factors. In fact, less than 3% of comparative physiological papers mention epigenetics. However, our understanding of epigenetic influences on physiological processes is growing rapidly, and it is highly likely that epigenetic phenomena are an additional 'hidden' source of variation, particularly in wild-caught specimens. Recent studies have shown epigenetic inheritance of commonly studied traits such as metabolic rate (water fleas Daphnia magna; emu, Dromaius novaellandiae), hypoxic tolerance, cardiac performance (zebrafish, Danio rerio), as well as numerous morphological effects. The ecological and evolutionary significance of such epigenetic inheritance is discussed in a comparative physiological context. Finally, against this context of epigenetic inheritance of phenotype, this essay also provides a number of caveats and warnings regarding the interpretation of transgenerational phenotype modification as a true epigenetic phenomenon. Parental effects, sperm storage, multiple paternity and direct gamete exposure can all be confounding factors. Epigenetic inheritance may best be studied in animal models that can be maintained in the laboratory over multiple generations, to yield parental stock that themselves are free of epigenetic effects from the historical experiences of their parents.

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First Analysis of Multiple Paternity in an Oviparous Shark, the Small-Spotted Catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula L.)

Cited by 43 publications

References 53 publications

Sexual conflict and the evolution of asexuality at low population densities

Sexual conflict and the evolution of asexuality at low population densities

Year‐round sexual harassment as a behavioral mediator of vertebrate population dynamics

Epigenetics as a source of variation in comparative animal physiology – or – Lamarck is lookin' pretty good these days

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