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By Hook or by Crook? Morphometry, Competition and Cooperation in Rodent Sperm

BACKGROUND: Sperm design varies enormously across species and sperm competition is thought to be a major factor influencing this variation. However, the functional significance of many sperm traits is still poorly understood. The sperm of most murid rodents are characterised by an apical hook of the...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Immler, Simone, Moore, Harry D.M., Breed, William G., Birkhead, Tim R.
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2007
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1764683/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17245446
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0000170
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author Immler, Simone
Moore, Harry D.M.
Breed, William G.
Birkhead, Tim R.
author_facet Immler, Simone
Moore, Harry D.M.
Breed, William G.
Birkhead, Tim R.
author_sort Immler, Simone
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Sperm design varies enormously across species and sperm competition is thought to be a major factor influencing this variation. However, the functional significance of many sperm traits is still poorly understood. The sperm of most murid rodents are characterised by an apical hook of the sperm head that varies markedly in extent across species. In the European woodmouse Apodemus sylvaticus (Muridae), the highly reflected apical hook of sperm is used to form sperm groups, or “trains,” which exhibited increased swimming velocity and thrusting force compared to individual sperm. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we use a comparative study of murine rodent sperm and demonstrate that the apical hook and sperm cooperation are likely to be general adaptations to sperm competition in rodents. We found that species with relatively larger testes, and therefore more intense sperm competition, have a longer, more reflected apical sperm hook. In addition, we show that sperm groups also occur in rodents other than the European woodmouse. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that in rodents sperm cooperation is more widespread than assumed so far and highlight the importance of diploid versus haploid selection in the evolution of sperm design and function.
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spelling pubmed-17646832007-01-24 By Hook or by Crook? Morphometry, Competition and Cooperation in Rodent Sperm Immler, Simone Moore, Harry D.M. Breed, William G. Birkhead, Tim R. PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Sperm design varies enormously across species and sperm competition is thought to be a major factor influencing this variation. However, the functional significance of many sperm traits is still poorly understood. The sperm of most murid rodents are characterised by an apical hook of the sperm head that varies markedly in extent across species. In the European woodmouse Apodemus sylvaticus (Muridae), the highly reflected apical hook of sperm is used to form sperm groups, or “trains,” which exhibited increased swimming velocity and thrusting force compared to individual sperm. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we use a comparative study of murine rodent sperm and demonstrate that the apical hook and sperm cooperation are likely to be general adaptations to sperm competition in rodents. We found that species with relatively larger testes, and therefore more intense sperm competition, have a longer, more reflected apical sperm hook. In addition, we show that sperm groups also occur in rodents other than the European woodmouse. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that in rodents sperm cooperation is more widespread than assumed so far and highlight the importance of diploid versus haploid selection in the evolution of sperm design and function. Public Library of Science 2007-01-24 /pmc/articles/PMC1764683/ /pubmed/17245446 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0000170 Text en Immler et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Immler, Simone
Moore, Harry D.M.
Breed, William G.
Birkhead, Tim R.
By Hook or by Crook? Morphometry, Competition and Cooperation in Rodent Sperm
title By Hook or by Crook? Morphometry, Competition and Cooperation in Rodent Sperm
title_full By Hook or by Crook? Morphometry, Competition and Cooperation in Rodent Sperm
title_fullStr By Hook or by Crook? Morphometry, Competition and Cooperation in Rodent Sperm
title_full_unstemmed By Hook or by Crook? Morphometry, Competition and Cooperation in Rodent Sperm
title_short By Hook or by Crook? Morphometry, Competition and Cooperation in Rodent Sperm
title_sort by hook or by crook? morphometry, competition and cooperation in rodent sperm
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1764683/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17245446
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0000170
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