ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2013
Cryptic female choice favours sperm from major histocompatibility complex-dissimilar males.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 132 citations in OpenAlex.
- Meta-analytic evidence that animals rarely avoid inbreeding.Nature ecology & evolution · 2021Pooled it
- Evidence for genetically-based sperm discrimination in the vaginal tract of a primate species.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Major histocompatibility complex class IIB disassortative mate choice in a genetically monogamous seabird.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Female-mediated selective sperm activation may remodel major histocompatibility complex-based mate choice decisions in humans.Heredity · 2025Article
- Male inbreeding reduces fertility, but does not accelerateBiology letters · 2025Article
- Influence of MHC on genetic diversity and testicular expression of linked olfactory receptor genes.BMC genomics · 2025Article
- Article
- Synthesis and Scope of the Role of Postmating Prezygotic Isolation in Speciation.Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology · 2024Review
- Multiple mechanisms for inbreeding avoidance used simultaneously in a wild ape.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Social group composition modulates the role of last male sperm precedence in post-copulatory sexual selection.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2023Article
- Ranking parameters driving siring success during sperm competition in the North African houbara bustard.Communications biology · 2023Article
- Selection on sperm size in response to promiscuity and variation in female sperm storage organs.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2023Article
- Sperm tendency to agglutinate in motile bundles in relation to sperm competition and fertility duration in chickens.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Cryptic female choice within individual males - A neglected component of the postmating sexual selection?Journal of evolutionary biology · 2022Review
- A Review of Suggested Mechanisms of MHC Odor Signaling.Biology · 2022Review
- Sperm Physiological Response to Female Serum-Potential New Insights into the Reproductive Incompatibility Diagnostics.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Sperm bauplan and function and underlying processes of sperm formation and selection.Physiological reviews · 2022Review
- Physiological factors influencing female fertility in birds.Royal Society open science · 2021Review
- Within-trio tests provide little support for post-copulatory selection on major histocompatibility complex haplotypes in a free-living population.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Temporal dynamics of competitive fertilization in social groups of red junglefowl (Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Cryptic female choice may enable polyandrous females to avoid inbreeding or bias offspring variability at key loci after mating. However, the role of these genetic benefits in cryptic female choice remains poorly understood. Female red junglefowl, Gallus gallus, bias sperm use in favour of unrelated males. Here, we experimentally investigate whether this bias is driven by relatedness per se, or by similarity at the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), genes central to vertebrate acquired immunity, where polymorphism is critical to an individual's ability to combat pathogens. Through experimentally controlled natural matings, we confirm that selection against related males' sperm occurs within the female reproductive tract but demonstrate that this is more accurately predicted by MHC similarity: controlling for relatedness per se, more sperm reached the eggs when partners were MHC--dissimilar. Importantly, this effect appeared largely owing to similarity at a single MHC locus (class I minor). Further, the effect of MHC similarity was lost following artificial insemination, suggesting that male phenotypic cues might be required for females to select sperm differentially. These results indicate that postmating mechanisms that reduce inbreeding may do so as a consequence of more specific strategies of cryptic female choice promoting MHC diversity in offspring.
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Registered trials
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.