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Postcopulatory Sexual Selection Results in Spermatozoa with More Uniform Head and Flagellum Sizes in Rodents

Interspecific comparative studies have shown that, in most taxa, postcopulatory sexual selection (PCSS) in the form of sperm competition drives the evolution of longer and faster swimming sperm. Work on passserine birds has revealed that PCSS also reduces variation in sperm size between males at the...

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Autores principales: Varea-Sánchez, María, Gómez Montoto, Laura, Tourmente, Maximiliano, Roldan, Eduardo R. S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4171531/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25243923
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0108148
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author Varea-Sánchez, María
Gómez Montoto, Laura
Tourmente, Maximiliano
Roldan, Eduardo R. S.
author_facet Varea-Sánchez, María
Gómez Montoto, Laura
Tourmente, Maximiliano
Roldan, Eduardo R. S.
author_sort Varea-Sánchez, María
collection PubMed
description Interspecific comparative studies have shown that, in most taxa, postcopulatory sexual selection (PCSS) in the form of sperm competition drives the evolution of longer and faster swimming sperm. Work on passserine birds has revealed that PCSS also reduces variation in sperm size between males at the intraspecific level. However, the influence of PCSS upon intra-male sperm size diversity is poorly understood, since the few studies carried out to date in birds have yielded contradictory results. In mammals, PCSS increases sperm size but there is little information on the effects of this selective force on variations in sperm size and shape. Here, we test whether sperm competition associates with a reduction in the degree of variation of sperm dimensions in rodents. We found that as sperm competition levels increase males produce sperm that are more similar in both the size of the head and the size of the flagellum. On the other hand, whereas with increasing levels of sperm competition there is less variation in head length in relation to head width (ratio CV head length/CV head width), there is no relation between variation in head and flagellum sizes (ratio CV head length/CV flagellum length). Thus, it appears that, in addition to a selection for longer sperm, sperm competition may select more uniform sperm heads and flagella, which together may enhance swimming velocity. Overall, sperm competition seems to drive sperm components towards an optimum design that may affect sperm performance which, in turn, will be crucial for successful fertilization.
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spelling pubmed-41715312014-09-25 Postcopulatory Sexual Selection Results in Spermatozoa with More Uniform Head and Flagellum Sizes in Rodents Varea-Sánchez, María Gómez Montoto, Laura Tourmente, Maximiliano Roldan, Eduardo R. S. PLoS One Research Article Interspecific comparative studies have shown that, in most taxa, postcopulatory sexual selection (PCSS) in the form of sperm competition drives the evolution of longer and faster swimming sperm. Work on passserine birds has revealed that PCSS also reduces variation in sperm size between males at the intraspecific level. However, the influence of PCSS upon intra-male sperm size diversity is poorly understood, since the few studies carried out to date in birds have yielded contradictory results. In mammals, PCSS increases sperm size but there is little information on the effects of this selective force on variations in sperm size and shape. Here, we test whether sperm competition associates with a reduction in the degree of variation of sperm dimensions in rodents. We found that as sperm competition levels increase males produce sperm that are more similar in both the size of the head and the size of the flagellum. On the other hand, whereas with increasing levels of sperm competition there is less variation in head length in relation to head width (ratio CV head length/CV head width), there is no relation between variation in head and flagellum sizes (ratio CV head length/CV flagellum length). Thus, it appears that, in addition to a selection for longer sperm, sperm competition may select more uniform sperm heads and flagella, which together may enhance swimming velocity. Overall, sperm competition seems to drive sperm components towards an optimum design that may affect sperm performance which, in turn, will be crucial for successful fertilization. Public Library of Science 2014-09-22 /pmc/articles/PMC4171531/ /pubmed/25243923 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0108148 Text en © 2014 Varea-Sánchez 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
Varea-Sánchez, María
Gómez Montoto, Laura
Tourmente, Maximiliano
Roldan, Eduardo R. S.
Postcopulatory Sexual Selection Results in Spermatozoa with More Uniform Head and Flagellum Sizes in Rodents
title Postcopulatory Sexual Selection Results in Spermatozoa with More Uniform Head and Flagellum Sizes in Rodents
title_full Postcopulatory Sexual Selection Results in Spermatozoa with More Uniform Head and Flagellum Sizes in Rodents
title_fullStr Postcopulatory Sexual Selection Results in Spermatozoa with More Uniform Head and Flagellum Sizes in Rodents
title_full_unstemmed Postcopulatory Sexual Selection Results in Spermatozoa with More Uniform Head and Flagellum Sizes in Rodents
title_short Postcopulatory Sexual Selection Results in Spermatozoa with More Uniform Head and Flagellum Sizes in Rodents
title_sort postcopulatory sexual selection results in spermatozoa with more uniform head and flagellum sizes in rodents
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4171531/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25243923
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0108148
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