Browse
Submit Data
Databases
API
Help

Dataset Information

26 Views

0 Connections

0 Citations

0 Reanalyses

0 Downloads

Omics score: 0

The baculum affects paternity success of first but not second males in house mouse sperm competition.

ABSTRACT: The vast variation observed in genital morphology is a longstanding puzzle in evolutionary biology. Studies showing that the morphology of the mammalian baculum (penis bone) can covary with a male's paternity success indicate a potential impact of baculum morphology on male fitness, likely through influencing sperm competition outcomes. We therefore measured the size (measurements of length and width) and shape (geometric morphometric measurements) of the bacula of male house mice used in previously published sperm competition experiments, in which two males mated successively with the same female in staged matings. This enabled us to correlate baculum morphology with sperm competition success, incorporating potential explanatory variables related to copulatory plugs, male mating behavior and a selfish genetic element that influences sperm motility. We found that a wider baculum shaft increased a male's paternity share when mating first, but not when mating second with a multiply-mating female. Geometric morphometric shape measurements were not clearly associated with fertilization success for either male. We found limited evidence that the effect of baculum morphology on male fertilization success was altered by experimental removal of the copulatory plug. Furthermore, neither genetic differences in sperm motility, nor covariation with male mating behavior mediated the effect of baculum morphology on male fertilization success. Taken together with previous findings, the mating-order effects we found here suggest that baculum-mediated stimulation by the first male might be particularly important for fertilization.

SUBMITTER: Winkler L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8359600 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Json Xml

Similar Datasets

Baculum shape and paternity success in house mice: evidence for genital coevolution.

Project description:Sexual selection is believed to be responsible for the rapid divergence of male genitalia, which is a widely observed phenomenon across different taxa. Among mammals, the stimulatory role of male genitalia and female 'sensory perception' has been suggested to explain these evolutionary patterns. Recent research on house mice has shown that baculum (penis bone) shape can respond to experimentally imposed sexual selection. Here, we explore the adaptive value of baculum shape by performing two experiments that examine the effects of male and female genitalia on male reproductive success. Thus, we selected house mice (Mus musculus domesticus) from families characterized by extremes in baculum shape (relative width) and examined paternity success in both non-competitive (monogamous) and competitive (polyandrous) contexts. Our analyses revealed that the relative baculum shape of competing males influenced competitive paternity success, but that this effect was dependent on the breeding value for baculum shape of the family from which females were derived. Our data provide novel insight into the potential mechanisms underlying the evolution of the house mouse baculum and lend support to the stimulatory hypothesis for the coevolution of male and female genitalia. This article is part of the theme issue 'Fifty years of sperm competition'.

| S-EPMC7661450 | biostudies-literature

Phenotypic plasticity in genitalia: baculum shape responds to sperm competition risk in house mice.

Project description:Males are known to adjust their expenditure on testes growth and sperm production in response to sperm competition risk. Genital morphology can also contribute to competitive fertilization success but whether male genital morphology can respond plastically to the sperm competition environment has received little attention. Here, we exposed male house mice to two different sperm competition environments during their sexual development and quantified phenotypic plasticity in baculum morphology. The sperm competition environment generated plasticity in body growth. Males maturing under sperm competition risk were larger and heavier than males maturing under no sperm competition risk. We used a landmark-based geometric morphometric approach to measure baculum size and shape. Independent of variation in body size, males maintained under risk of sperm competition had a relatively thicker and more distally extended baculum bulb compared with males maintained under no sperm competition risk. Plasticity in baculum shape paralleled evolutionary responses to selection from sperm competition reported in previous studies of house mice. Our findings provide experimental evidence of socially mediated phenotypic plasticity in male genitalia.

| S-EPMC6053933 | biostudies-literature

Baculum morphology predicts reproductive success of male house mice under sexual selection.

Project description:Diversity in penile morphology is characterised by extraordinary variation in the size and shape of the baculum (penis bone) found in many mammals. Although functionally enigmatic, diversity in baculum form is hypothesised to result from sexual selection. According to this hypothesis, the baculum should influence the outcome of reproductive competition among males within promiscuous mating systems. However, a test of this key prediction is currently lacking.Here we show that baculum size explains significant variation in the reproductive success of male house mice under competitive conditions. After controlling for body size and other reproductive traits, the width (but not length) of the house mouse baculum predicts both the mean number of offspring sired per litter and total number of offspring sired.By providing the first evidence linking baculum morphology to male reproductive success, our results support the hypothesis that evolutionary diversity in baculum form is driven by sexual selection.

| S-EPMC3693876 | biostudies-other

Sperm morphology, sperm motility and paternity success in the bluethroat (Luscinia svecica).

Project description:Postcopulatory sexual selection may select for male primary sexual characteristics like sperm morphology and sperm motility, through sperm competition or cryptic female choice. However, how such characteristics influence male fertilization success remains poorly understood. In this study, we investigate possible correlations between sperm characteristics and paternity success in the socially monogamous bluethroat (Luscinia svecica svecica), predicting that sperm length and sperm swimming speed is positively correlated with paternity success. In total, 25% (15/61) of broods contained extra-pair offspring and 10% (33/315) of the offspring were sired by extra-pair males. Paternity success did not correlate significantly with sperm morphology or any aspects of sperm motility. Furthermore, sperm morphology and sperm motility did not correlate significantly with male morphological characters that previously have been shown to be associated with paternity success. Thus, the sperm characteristics investigated here do not appear to be strong predictors of paternity success in bluethroats.

| S-EPMC5839561 | biostudies-literature

Male age alone predicts paternity success under sperm competition when effects of age and past mating effort are experimentally separated.

Project description:Older males often perform poorly under post-copulatory sexual selection. It is unclear, however, whether reproductive senescence is because of male age itself or the accumulated costs of the higher lifetime mating effort that is usually associated with male age. To date, very few studies have accounted for mating history and sperm storage when testing the effect of male age on sperm traits, and none test how age and past mating history influence paternity success under sperm competition. Here, we experimentally manipulate male mating history to tease apart its effects from that of age on ejaculate traits and paternity in the mosquitofish, Gambusia holbrooki. We found that old, naive males had more sperm than old, experienced males, while the reverse was true for young males. By contrast, neither male age nor mating history affected sperm velocity. Finally, using artificial insemination to experimentally control the number of sperm per male, we found that old males sired significantly more offspring than young males independently of their mating history. Our results highlight that the general pattern of male reproductive senescence described in many taxa may often be affected by two naturally confounding factors, male mating history and sperm age, rather than male age itself.

| S-EPMC8316792 | biostudies-literature

A predominant role of genotypic variation in both expression of sperm competition genes and paternity success in <i>Drosophila melanogaster</i>.

Project description:Sperm competition is a crucial aspect of male reproductive success in many species, including Drosophila melanogaster, and seminal fluid proteins (Sfps) can influence sperm competitiveness. However, the combined effect of environmental and genotypic variation on sperm competition gene expression remains poorly understood. Here, we used Drosophila Genetic Reference Panel (DGRP) inbred lines and manipulated developmental population density (i.e. larval density) to test the effects of genotype, environment and genotype-by-environment interactions (GEI) on the expression of the known sperm competition genes Sex Peptide, Acp36DE and CG9997. High larval density resulted in reduced adult body size, but expression of sperm competition genes remained unaffected. Furthermore, we found no significant GEI but genotypic effects in the expression of SP and Acp36DE. Our results also revealed GEI for relative competitive paternity success (second male paternity; P2), with genes' expression positively correlated with P2. Given the effect of genotype on the expression of genes, we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) and identified polymorphisms in putative cis-regulatory elements as predominant factors regulating the expression of SP and Acp36DE. The association of genotypic variation with sperm competition outcomes, and the resilience of sperm competition genes' expression against environmental challenges, demonstrates the importance of genome variation background in reproductive fitness.

| S-EPMC10509582 | biostudies-literature

Sperm competition games when males invest in paternal care.

Project description:Sperm competition games investigate how males partition limited resources between pre- and post-copulatory competition. Although extensive research has explored how various aspects of mating systems affect this allocation, male allocation between mating, fertilization and parental effort has not previously been considered. Yet, paternal care can be energetically expensive and males are generally predicted to adjust their parental effort in response to expected paternity. Here, we incorporate parental effort into sperm competition games, particularly exploring how the relationship between paternal care and offspring survival affects sperm competition and the relationship between paternity and paternal care. Our results support existing expectations that (i) fertilization effort should increase with female promiscuity and (ii) paternal care should increase with expected paternity. However, our analyses also reveal that the cost of male care can drive the strength of these patterns. When paternal behaviour is energetically costly, increased allocation to parental effort constrains allocation to fertilization effort. As paternal care becomes less costly, the association between paternity and paternal care weakens and may even be absent. By explicitly considering variation in sperm competition and the cost of male care, our model provides an integrative framework for predicting the interaction between paternal care and patterns of paternity.

| S-EPMC5563816 | biostudies-literature

Sneaker "jack" males outcompete dominant "hooknose" males under sperm competition in Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha).

Project description:In a variety of taxa, males deploy alternative reproductive tactics to secure fertilizations. In many species, small "sneaker" males attempt to steal fertilizations while avoiding encounters with larger, more aggressive, dominant males. Sneaker males usually face a number of disadvantages, including reduced access to females and the higher likelihood that upon ejaculation, their sperm face competition from other males. Nevertheless, sneaker males represent an evolutionarily stable strategy under a wide range of conditions. Game theory suggests that sneaker males compensate for these disadvantages by investing disproportionately in spermatogenesis, by producing more sperm per unit body mass (the "fair raffle") and/or by producing higher quality sperm (the "loaded raffle"). Here, we test these models by competing sperm from sneaker "jack" males against sperm from dominant "hooknose" males in Chinook salmon. Using two complementary approaches, we reject the fair raffle in favor of the loaded raffle and estimate that jack males were ∼1.35 times as likely as hooknose males to fertilize eggs under controlled competitive conditions. Interestingly, the direction and magnitude of this skew in paternity shifted according to individual female egg donors, suggesting cryptic female choice could moderate the outcomes of sperm competition in this externally fertilizing species.

| S-EPMC3892362 | biostudies-literature

Ocean acidification during prefertilization chemical communication affects sperm success.

Project description:Ocean acidification (OA) poses a major threat to marine organisms, particularly during reproduction when externally shed gametes are vulnerable to changes in seawater pH. Accordingly, several studies on OA have focused on how changes in seawater pH influence sperm behavior and/or rates of in vitro fertilization. By contrast, few studies have examined how pH influences prefertilization gamete interactions, which are crucial during natural spawning events in most externally fertilizing taxa. One mechanism of gamete interaction that forms an important component of fertilization in most taxa is communication between sperm and egg-derived chemicals. These chemical signals, along with the physiological responses in sperm they elicit, are likely to be highly sensitive to changes in seawater chemistry. In this study, we experimentally tested this possibility using the blue mussel, Mytilus galloprovincialis, a species in which females have been shown to use egg-derived chemicals to promote the success of sperm from genetically compatible males. We conducted trials in which sperm were allowed to swim in gradients of egg-derived chemicals under different seawater CO2 (and therefore pH) treatments. We found that sperm had elevated fertilization rates after swimming in the presence of egg-derived chemicals in low pH (pH 7.6) compared with ambient (pH 8.0) seawater. This observed effect could have important implications for the reproductive fitness of external fertilizers, where gamete compatibility plays a critical role in modulating reproduction in many species. For example, elevated sperm fertilization rates might disrupt the eggs' capacity to avoid fertilizations by genetically incompatible sperm. Our findings highlight the need to understand how OA affects the multiple stages of sperm-egg interactions and to develop approaches that disentangle the implications of OA for female, male, and population fitness.

| S-EPMC6854328 | biostudies-literature

Males with a mother living in their group have higher paternity success in bonobos but not chimpanzees.

Project description:In many group-living mammals, mothers may increase the reproductive success of their daughters even after they are nutritionally independent and fully grown [1]. However, whether such maternal effects exist for adult sons is largely unknown. Here we show that males have higher paternity success when their mother is living in the group at the time of the offspring's conception in bonobos (N = 39 paternities from 4 groups) but not in chimpanzees (N = 263 paternities from 7 groups). These results are consistent with previous research showing a stronger role of mothers (and females more generally) in bonobo than chimpanzee societies.

| S-EPMC7335732 | biostudies-literature

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

OmicsDI is an Elixir interoperability service. Learn more ›

Tweets

OmicsDI Databases

PRIDE
PeptideAtlas
MassIVE
JPOST Repository
Physiome Model Repository

EGA
EVA
ENA
LINCS
PAXDB
Cell Collective

MetaboLights
Metabolomics Workbench
MetabolomeExpress
GNPS
BioModels
FAIRDOMHub

ArrayExpress
dbGaP
ExpressionAtlas
GEO
NODE

Information

Databases
Help
API
Contact us
Code on GitHub
Terms of use
Submit Data