Why Do Females Mate with Multiple Males? The Sexually Selected Sperm Hypothesis

Keller, Laurent; Reeve, H. Kern

doi:10.1016/s0065-3454(08)60397-6

Cited by 370 publications

(357 citation statements)

References 109 publications

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“…Our results suggest that within-ejaculate competition between sperm may contribute not only to the evolution of female 'barriers' to sperm [1][2][3] but also to the evolution of sperm numbers [27,28]. If sperm phenotype affects offspring performance, this may result in indirect selection on ejaculate size favouring males that produce large numbers of sperm even in the absence of between-ejaculate sperm competition (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…An intriguing facet of our findings is that the relationship between development time and sperm selection treatment was nonlinear ( figure 1). This may reflect the balance between within-ejaculate sperm selection for long-lived sperm (whereby average sperm quality would increase with sperm age [1,3]) and post-activation sperm senescence [18][19][20]. Sperm longevity appears to have a positive effect on offspring in a broadcast spawning ascidian [21] but negative effects on offspring fitness in kittiwakes, Rissa tridactyla [22].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Why females have evolved to complicate fertilization is puzzling, especially considering that hostility towards sperm may result in infertility [2]. One possibility is that females benefit from having higher quality males fertilizing their eggs [1,3], a hypothesis, which relies upon polyandry and a positive association between male success in sperm competition and offspring quality across males [4,5]. However, the facts that the association between the competitiveness of a male's ejaculate and the fitness of his offspring can be negative [5] and that fertilization seems to be similarly difficult in many monandrous species suggest that other mechanisms may be at play.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sperm variation within a single ejaculate affects offspring development in Atlantic salmon

et al. 2014

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It is generally believed that variation in sperm phenotype within a single ejaculate has no consequences for offspring performance, because sperm phenotypes are thought not to reflect sperm genotypes. We show that variation in individual sperm function within an ejaculate affects the performance of the resulting offspring in the Atlantic salmon Salmo salar. We experimentally manipulated the time between sperm activation and fertilization in order to select for sperm cohorts differing in longevity within single ejaculates of wild caught male salmon. We found that within-ejaculate variation in sperm longevity significantly affected offspring development and hence time until hatching. Whether these effects have a genetic or epigenetic basis needs to be further evaluated. However, our results provide experimental evidence for transgenerational effects of individual sperm function.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sperm variation within a single ejaculate affects offspring development in Atlantic salmon

et al. 2014

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“…Because polyandry extends the scope for sexual selection (see reviews in Eberhard 1996;Birkhead & Møller 1998), indirect genetic benefits can also be expected to play a role. The progeny of polyandrous females may inherit their fathers' high sperm competitiveness (Keller & Reeve 1995;Bernasconi & Keller 2001) or other beneficial traits that are correlated with sperm competitiveness (Yasui 1997;Watson 1998;Evans & Magurran 2000;Konior et al 2001) and polyandry may facilitate cryptic female choice (Eberhard 1996;Ward 2000). Mating with many males may also serve to avoid genetic incompatibility (Newcomer et al 1999;Simmons 2001), inbreeding (Tregenza & Wedell 2002) or fertilization by older males' sperm that is burdened with deleterious mutations (Radwan 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Good genes and the maternal effects of polyandry on offspring reproductive success in the bulb mite

Kozielska

Krzemińska

Radwan

2004

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

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Genetic benefits are potentially the most robust explanation of the controversial issue of evolutionary maintenance of polyandry, but the unambiguous demonstration of such benefits has been hindered by the possibility of their confusion with maternal effects. Previous research has shown that polyandrous bulb mite females produce daughters with higher fecundity than monandrous females. Here, we investigate whether this effect arises because polyandrous females invest more in their offspring, or because their offspring inherit 'good genes' from their fathers. Females were mated with either one or four (different) males. However, by sterilizing three of the four males with ionizing radiation, we eliminated any chance of sexual selection (in the polyandrous treatment) so that any differences in the female mating regimes must have been owing to maternal effects. Polyandry had no significant effect on daughter fecundity, thus indicating that any previously documented effects must have been genetic. This was further supported by a significant association between fathers' offensive sperm-competitive ability and the fecundity of their daughters. The association with fathers' sperm defensive ability was not significant, and neither was the association between fathers' sperm competitiveness and sons' reproductive success. However, sons of polyandrous females had lower reproductive success than sons of monandrous females. This shows that the maternal effects of polyandry should be taken into account whenever its costs and benefits are being considered.

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“…However, females too may influence patterns of sperm use (Walker 1980;Otronen et al 1997;Ward 1998Ward , 2000Hellreigel & Bernasconi 2000). Various mechanisms have been suggested for ways in which multiply mated females may bias paternity in favour of particular males (Birkhead et al 1993;Keller & Reeve 1995;Eberhard 1996). The complex morphology of female reproductive tracts in many species may reflect selection on females to influence the use of sperm from different males for fertilization (Walker 1980;Linley & Simmons 1981).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of female reproductive anatomy on the outcome of sperm competition inDrosophila melanogaster

Bangham

Chapman²,

Smith³

et al. 2003

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

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Females as well as males can influence the outcome of sperm competition, and may do so through the anatomy of their reproductive tracts. Female Drosophila melanogaster store sperm in two morphologically distinct organs: a single seminal receptacle and, normally, two spermathecae. These organs have different temporal roles in sperm storage. To examine the association between sperm storage organ morphology and sperm competition, we used a mutant type of female with three spermathecae. Although the common measure of sperm competition, P 2 , did not differ between females with two and three spermathecae, the pattern of sperm use over time indicated that female morphology did affect male reproductive success. The rate of offspring production by females with three spermathecae rose and fell more rapidly than by females with two spermathecae. If females remate or die before using up second male sperm, then second male reproductive success will be higher when they mate with females with three spermathecae. The results indicate that temporal patterns of sperm use as well as P 2 should be taken into account when measuring the outcome of sperm competition.

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Why Do Females Mate with Multiple Males? The Sexually Selected Sperm Hypothesis

Cited by 370 publications

References 109 publications

Sperm variation within a single ejaculate affects offspring development in Atlantic salmon

Sperm variation within a single ejaculate affects offspring development in Atlantic salmon

Good genes and the maternal effects of polyandry on offspring reproductive success in the bulb mite

Influence of female reproductive anatomy on the outcome of sperm competition inDrosophila melanogaster

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