Journal ArticleDOI
Drosophila melanogaster seminal fluid can protect the sperm of other males
TLDR
It is suggested that residual seminal fluid inside females could benefit the sperm of subsequent mates, affecting the outcome of sperm competition and influencing the evolution of ejaculates and mating systems.Abstract:
Summary
1Many internally-fertilizing animals produce seminal fluid which is transferred along with sperm during mating. Seminal fluid typically contains a diverse range of chemicals that coordinate sperm storage, moderate sperm motility, provide advantages in sexual selection and influence female physiology.
2Seminal fluid is well-studied in Drosophila melanogaster, a species in which it has been suggested to ‘incapacitate’ the sperm of rival males (e.g. by killing them) and thereby provide an advantage in sperm competition. This hypothesis has been tested several times over many years, but different studies have yielded conflicting conclusions. Here, I use fluorescent staining to directly measure the effects of D. melanogaster seminal fluid on the survival of sperm from the same male or from a rival. The results suggest that seminal fluid improves sperm survival, even if the sperm are from a different male. This study therefore provides strong evidence that seminal fluid does not kill rival sperm, and instead can actually protect them. This study also tested whether chemicals in the female reproductive tract harm sperm as in another Drosophila species, but found no evidence of this.
3These findings suggest that residual seminal fluid inside females could benefit the sperm of subsequent mates, affecting the outcome of sperm competition and influencing the evolution of ejaculates and mating systems.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Seminal fluid protein divergence among populations exhibiting postmating prezygotic reproductive isolation.
TL;DR: This study provides the first high‐throughput quantitative proteomic evidence showing divergence of reproductive proteins between populations that exhibit postmating prezygotic (PMPZ) isolation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Motility, Viability and Fertilizing Ability of Avian Sperm Stored Under in Vitro Conditions
TL;DR: This paper reviews the sperm motility, viability and fertilizing ability of main poultry species stored in vitro conditions and will help to understand a scenario of in vitro avian sperm mot utility, viability, and their fertilization ability.
Journal ArticleDOI
Transcriptomic analysis of the honey bee (Apis mellifera) queen spermathecae reveals genes that may be involved in sperm storage after mating.
Juliana Rangel,Tonya F. Shepherd,Alejandra N. Gonzalez,Andrew Hillhouse,Kranti Konganti,Nancy H. Ing +5 more
TL;DR: In this article, the transcriptome of honey bee spermathecae from mated and virgin honey bee queens was analyzed using RNA sequencing to identify differences in mRNA levels based on a queen's mating status.
Journal ArticleDOI
Own, but not foreign seminal fluid inhibits sperm activation in a vertebrate with external fertilization
TL;DR: The results document that the presence of foreign seminal fluid under sperm competition do not have apparent effect on sperm velocity, and the large inhibitory effect on initial activation of sperm cells seen in own, but not in foreign dilutions of seminal fluids (and water) suggests an individual specific recognition mechanism exerted by something in the seminal fluid on own,but not foreign sperm cells.
Journal ArticleDOI
Evolutionary modeling predicts a decrease in postcopulatory sperm viability as a response to increasing levels of sperm competition.
TL;DR: A novel theoretical model aiming at predicting evolutionarily stable sperm viability in relation to female mating frequency in a mating system with internal fertilization is presented and demonstrates that sperm viability is expected to decrease with increasing female remating rates and thus to decreases with increasing levels of sperm competition.
References
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Cost of mating in Drosophila melanogaster females is mediated by male accessory gland products
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Reactive oxygen species and sperm physiology
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Sperm in competition: not playing by the numbers.
TL;DR: To understand how postcopulatory sexual selection influences sperm traits, future research should determine sex-specific interactions that influence paternity, identify genetic correlations between ejaculate characters, quantify the relative costs of producing different sperm trait, and test assumptions of models of sperm quality evolution.
Journal ArticleDOI
Tokens of love: functions and regulation of Drosophila male accessory gland products.
TL;DR: These studies provide excellent models to address basic questions in cell biology such as the control of genes in response to sex-specific, mating-regulated and cell type-specific cues and the function and targeting of peptide hormones.