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Male Age Influences Re-mating Incidence and Sperm Use in Females of the Dengue Vector Aedes aegypti

Diseases transmitted by female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are public health issues in countries in the tropics and sub-tropics. As in other insects, A. aegypti females undergo behavioral and physiological changes upon mating that principally act to facilitate the production of progeny. The primary eff...

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Autores principales: Agudelo, Juliana, Alfonso-Parra, Catalina, Avila, Frank W.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8329734/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34354600
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2021.691221
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author Agudelo, Juliana
Alfonso-Parra, Catalina
Avila, Frank W.
author_facet Agudelo, Juliana
Alfonso-Parra, Catalina
Avila, Frank W.
author_sort Agudelo, Juliana
collection PubMed
description Diseases transmitted by female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are public health issues in countries in the tropics and sub-tropics. As in other insects, A. aegypti females undergo behavioral and physiological changes upon mating that principally act to facilitate the production of progeny. The primary effectors of A. aegypti female post-mating responses are male-derived seminal proteins that are transferred to females during mating. Increased male age reduces ejaculate function in numerous taxa and alters seminal protein composition in Drosophila melanogaster, but the impacts of male age on female A. aegypti post-mating responses are unknown. Here, we used “old” (21–22 days old) and “young” (4–5 days old) A. aegypti males to assess the influence of male age on oviposition, fertility, and re-mating incidence in their mates. We also examined how age influenced paternity share in females initially mated to young or old males that subsequently re-mated with a transgenic male that transferred RFP-labeled sperm and whose progeny inherited a larval-expressed GFP marker. We found that increased male age had no effect on female fecundity or fertility but significantly impacted their ability to prevent re-mating in their mates—more than half (54.5%) of the females mated to an old male re-mated, compared to 24% of females initially mated to a young male. Polyandrous A. aegypti females displayed first male precedence regardless of the age of their initial mate. However, young males were better able to compete with rival male sperm, siring significantly more progeny (77%) compared to old males (64%). Young males had significantly more sperm in their seminal vesicles than old males at the time of mating, although males of both age groups transferred similar numbers of sperm to their mates. Our results suggest that male senescence differentially impacts the induction of some post-mating changes in A. aegypti females. As the effect of age may be further exacerbated in the field, age-related declines in male ability to induce sexual refractoriness have implications for A. aegypti population control programs that release adults into the environment.
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spelling pubmed-83297342021-08-04 Male Age Influences Re-mating Incidence and Sperm Use in Females of the Dengue Vector Aedes aegypti Agudelo, Juliana Alfonso-Parra, Catalina Avila, Frank W. Front Physiol Physiology Diseases transmitted by female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are public health issues in countries in the tropics and sub-tropics. As in other insects, A. aegypti females undergo behavioral and physiological changes upon mating that principally act to facilitate the production of progeny. The primary effectors of A. aegypti female post-mating responses are male-derived seminal proteins that are transferred to females during mating. Increased male age reduces ejaculate function in numerous taxa and alters seminal protein composition in Drosophila melanogaster, but the impacts of male age on female A. aegypti post-mating responses are unknown. Here, we used “old” (21–22 days old) and “young” (4–5 days old) A. aegypti males to assess the influence of male age on oviposition, fertility, and re-mating incidence in their mates. We also examined how age influenced paternity share in females initially mated to young or old males that subsequently re-mated with a transgenic male that transferred RFP-labeled sperm and whose progeny inherited a larval-expressed GFP marker. We found that increased male age had no effect on female fecundity or fertility but significantly impacted their ability to prevent re-mating in their mates—more than half (54.5%) of the females mated to an old male re-mated, compared to 24% of females initially mated to a young male. Polyandrous A. aegypti females displayed first male precedence regardless of the age of their initial mate. However, young males were better able to compete with rival male sperm, siring significantly more progeny (77%) compared to old males (64%). Young males had significantly more sperm in their seminal vesicles than old males at the time of mating, although males of both age groups transferred similar numbers of sperm to their mates. Our results suggest that male senescence differentially impacts the induction of some post-mating changes in A. aegypti females. As the effect of age may be further exacerbated in the field, age-related declines in male ability to induce sexual refractoriness have implications for A. aegypti population control programs that release adults into the environment. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-07-01 /pmc/articles/PMC8329734/ /pubmed/34354600 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2021.691221 Text en Copyright © 2021 Agudelo, Alfonso-Parra and Avila. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Physiology
Agudelo, Juliana
Alfonso-Parra, Catalina
Avila, Frank W.
Male Age Influences Re-mating Incidence and Sperm Use in Females of the Dengue Vector Aedes aegypti
title Male Age Influences Re-mating Incidence and Sperm Use in Females of the Dengue Vector Aedes aegypti
title_full Male Age Influences Re-mating Incidence and Sperm Use in Females of the Dengue Vector Aedes aegypti
title_fullStr Male Age Influences Re-mating Incidence and Sperm Use in Females of the Dengue Vector Aedes aegypti
title_full_unstemmed Male Age Influences Re-mating Incidence and Sperm Use in Females of the Dengue Vector Aedes aegypti
title_short Male Age Influences Re-mating Incidence and Sperm Use in Females of the Dengue Vector Aedes aegypti
title_sort male age influences re-mating incidence and sperm use in females of the dengue vector aedes aegypti
topic Physiology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8329734/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34354600
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2021.691221
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