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The Functional Significance of Chiral Genitalia: Patterns of Asymmetry, Functional Morphology and Mating Success in the Praying Mantis Ciulfina baldersoni

Genital asymmetry is relatively common and widespread throughout the animal kingdom. The functional significance of genital asymmetry is however, poorly understood for most species. Male praying mantids of the genus Ciulfina are remarkable in possessing complex and directionally asymmetric genital p...

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Autores principales: Holwell, Gregory I., Kazakova, Olga, Evans, Felicity, O’Hanlon, James C., Barry, Katherine L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4479579/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26107629
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0128755
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author Holwell, Gregory I.
Kazakova, Olga
Evans, Felicity
O’Hanlon, James C.
Barry, Katherine L.
author_facet Holwell, Gregory I.
Kazakova, Olga
Evans, Felicity
O’Hanlon, James C.
Barry, Katherine L.
author_sort Holwell, Gregory I.
collection PubMed
description Genital asymmetry is relatively common and widespread throughout the animal kingdom. The functional significance of genital asymmetry is however, poorly understood for most species. Male praying mantids of the genus Ciulfina are remarkable in possessing complex and directionally asymmetric genital phallomeres in some species, and chirally dimorphic/antisymmetric genitalia in others. Here we explore the chiral dimorphism in male genitalia of Ciulfina baldersoni which appear to exhibit genital antisymmetry. We test whether genital orientation influences mating success, copulation duration and the attachment duration of spermatophores. Additionally we investigate genital interactions between male and females using x-ray micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Lastly we assess whether genital asymmetry is associated with non-genital morphological asymmetry of a range of traits. Our results highlight the complex functional morphology of genitalia in this praying mantis species and yet demonstrate no functional difference between dextral and sinistral morphs other than the direction of attachment with both morphs enjoying equal levels of mating success. Chiral morphs also did not strongly associate with any other forms of asymmetry. We therefore conclude that genital chirality in Ciulfina baldersoni is a likely case of antisymmetry with no functional significance to genital orientation, and is likely to be selectively neutral.
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spelling pubmed-44795792015-06-29 The Functional Significance of Chiral Genitalia: Patterns of Asymmetry, Functional Morphology and Mating Success in the Praying Mantis Ciulfina baldersoni Holwell, Gregory I. Kazakova, Olga Evans, Felicity O’Hanlon, James C. Barry, Katherine L. PLoS One Research Article Genital asymmetry is relatively common and widespread throughout the animal kingdom. The functional significance of genital asymmetry is however, poorly understood for most species. Male praying mantids of the genus Ciulfina are remarkable in possessing complex and directionally asymmetric genital phallomeres in some species, and chirally dimorphic/antisymmetric genitalia in others. Here we explore the chiral dimorphism in male genitalia of Ciulfina baldersoni which appear to exhibit genital antisymmetry. We test whether genital orientation influences mating success, copulation duration and the attachment duration of spermatophores. Additionally we investigate genital interactions between male and females using x-ray micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Lastly we assess whether genital asymmetry is associated with non-genital morphological asymmetry of a range of traits. Our results highlight the complex functional morphology of genitalia in this praying mantis species and yet demonstrate no functional difference between dextral and sinistral morphs other than the direction of attachment with both morphs enjoying equal levels of mating success. Chiral morphs also did not strongly associate with any other forms of asymmetry. We therefore conclude that genital chirality in Ciulfina baldersoni is a likely case of antisymmetry with no functional significance to genital orientation, and is likely to be selectively neutral. Public Library of Science 2015-06-24 /pmc/articles/PMC4479579/ /pubmed/26107629 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0128755 Text en © 2015 Holwell 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
Holwell, Gregory I.
Kazakova, Olga
Evans, Felicity
O’Hanlon, James C.
Barry, Katherine L.
The Functional Significance of Chiral Genitalia: Patterns of Asymmetry, Functional Morphology and Mating Success in the Praying Mantis Ciulfina baldersoni
title The Functional Significance of Chiral Genitalia: Patterns of Asymmetry, Functional Morphology and Mating Success in the Praying Mantis Ciulfina baldersoni
title_full The Functional Significance of Chiral Genitalia: Patterns of Asymmetry, Functional Morphology and Mating Success in the Praying Mantis Ciulfina baldersoni
title_fullStr The Functional Significance of Chiral Genitalia: Patterns of Asymmetry, Functional Morphology and Mating Success in the Praying Mantis Ciulfina baldersoni
title_full_unstemmed The Functional Significance of Chiral Genitalia: Patterns of Asymmetry, Functional Morphology and Mating Success in the Praying Mantis Ciulfina baldersoni
title_short The Functional Significance of Chiral Genitalia: Patterns of Asymmetry, Functional Morphology and Mating Success in the Praying Mantis Ciulfina baldersoni
title_sort functional significance of chiral genitalia: patterns of asymmetry, functional morphology and mating success in the praying mantis ciulfina baldersoni
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4479579/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26107629
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0128755
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