ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2011
Mating behavior and the evolution of sperm design.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 55 papers.
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Who cites it
55 citing papers in PubMed, 135 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- Thirty Years of the Biology of Spermatozoa: The Rise and Future of an Evolutionary Paradigm.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Developmental, regenerative, and behavioral dynamics in acoel reproduction.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Evolution and co-evolution of the suck behaviour, a postcopulatory female resistance trait that manipulates received ejaculate.BMC biology · 2025Article
- Genome assemblies of the simultaneously hermaphroditic flatworms Macrostomum cliftonense and Macrostomum hystrix.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2023Article
- Mating strategy predicts gene presence/absence patterns in a genus of simultaneously hermaphroditic flatworms.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2022Article
- Fertilization mode differentially impacts the evolution of vertebrate sperm components.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Evolution of sex allocation plasticity in a hermaphroditic flatworm genus.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2022Article
- Review
- Mating behavior and reproductive morphology predict macroevolution of sex allocation in hermaphroditic flatworms.BMC biology · 2022Article
- Frequent origins of traumatic insemination involve convergent shifts in sperm and genital morphology.Evolution letters · 2022Article
- Unraveling patterns of disrupted gene expression across a complex tissue.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2022Article
- Three new species ofZooKeys · 2022Article
- B Chromosomes in Free-Living Flatworms of the GenusInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2021Article
- Faster Rates of Molecular Sequence Evolution in Reproduction-Related Genes and in Species with Hypodermic Sperm Morphologies.Molecular biology and evolution · 2021Article
- Precopulatory oral sex contact plays an important role in copulatory success in a cryptic desert beetle.Ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Article
- Impact of Segmented Magnetization on the Flagellar Propulsion of Sperm-Templated Microrobots.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2021Article
- The repeatable opportunity for selection differs between pre- and postcopulatory fitness components.Evolution letters · 2021Article
- Free-living Microturbellarians (Platyhelminthes) from Wetlands in Southern Brazil, with the Description of Three New Species.Zoological studies · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Sperm are the most diverse of all animal cell types, and much of the diversity in sperm design is thought to reflect adaptations to the highly variable conditions under which sperm function and compete to achieve fertilization. Recent work has shown that these conditions often evolve rapidly as a consequence of multiple mating, suggesting a role for sexual selection and sexual conflict in the evolution of sperm design. However, very little of the striking diversity in sperm design is understood functionally, particularly in internally fertilizing organisms. We use phylogenetic comparative analyses covering 16 species of the hermaphroditic flatworm genus Macrostomum to show that a complex sperm design is associated with reciprocal mating and that this complexity is lost secondarily when hypodermic insemination--sperm injection through the epidermis--evolves. Specifically, the complex sperm design, which includes stiff lateral bristles, is likely a male persistence trait associated with sexual conflicts over the fate of received ejaculates and linked to female resistance traits, namely an intriguing postcopulatory sucking behavior and a thickened epithelium of the sperm-receiving organ. Our results suggest that the interactions between sperm donor, sperm, and sperm recipient can change drastically when hypodermic insemination evolves, involving convergent evolution of a needle-like copulatory organ, a simpler sperm design, and a simpler female genital morphology. Our study documents that a shift in the mating behavior may alter fundamentally the conditions under which sperm compete and thereby lead to a drastic change in sperm design.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.