ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2014
Chemically moderated gamete preferences predict offspring fitness in a broadcast spawning invertebrate.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers.
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Who cites it
38 citing papers in PubMed.
- Limited inbreeding avoidance at the gamete level despite inbreeding depression in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar).The Journal of animal ecology · 2025Article
- Silent cells? Potential for context-dependent gene expression in mature sperm.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Article
- Sperm performance in the race for fertilization, the influence of female reproductive fluid.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Population density effects on gamete traits and fertilisation dynamics under varying sperm environments in mussels.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Polystyrene Nanoplastics in Aquatic Microenvironments Affect Sperm Metabolism and Fertilization ofToxics · 2023Article
- Paternal environment effects are driven by female reproductive fluid but not sperm age in an external fertilizer.Biology letters · 2023Article
- The coevolutionary dynamics of cryptic female choice.Evolution letters · 2023Article
- Female reproductive fluid attracts more and better sperm: implications for within-ejaculate cryptic female choice.Biology letters · 2023Article
- Female reproductive fluids 'rescue' sperm from phenotypic ageing in an external fertilizer.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Frequency-dependent viscosity of salmon ovarian fluid has biophysical implications for sperm-egg interactions.The Journal of experimental biology · 2023Article
- Ocean acidification alters sperm responses to egg-derived chemicals in a broadcast spawning mussel.Biology letters · 2022Article
- Density-dependent patterns of multivariate selection on sperm motility and morphology in a broadcast spawning mussel.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Female-induced selective modification of sperm protein SUMOylation-potential mechanistic insights into the non-random fertilization in humans.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2022Article
- Sperm bauplan and function and underlying processes of sperm formation and selection.Physiological reviews · 2022Review
- Genetic incompatibility of the reproductive partners: an evolutionary perspective on infertility.Human reproduction (Oxford, England) · 2021Article
- Article
- The thermal environment of sperm affects offspring success: a test of the anticipatory paternal effects hypothesis in the blue mussel.Biology letters · 2021Article
- Indirect parental effects on offspring viability by egg-derived fluids in an external fertilizer.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Sexual selection after gamete release in broadcast spawning invertebrates.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Sperm chemoattraction, where sperm locate unfertilized eggs by following a concentration gradient of egg-derived chemoattractants, has been widely documented across numerous taxa. While marine invertebrates are favoured models for understanding the underlying mechanisms of sperm chemoattraction, the evolutionary forces underpinning the process remain enigmatic. Here, we show that in mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis), chemically moderated gamete preferences promote assortative fertilizations between genetically compatible gametes. When offered the choice of egg clutches from two females, sperm exhibited consistent but differential 'preferences' for chemical cues secreted from conspecific eggs. Critically, our data reveal that the preferences shown by sperm during the egg-choice trials are highly predictive of early embryonic viability when eggs and sperm from the same individuals are mixed during standard (no-choice) fertilization assays. Moreover, we demonstrate that by experimentally separating chemoattractants from eggs, sperm swimming behaviour is differentially regulated by egg-derived chemoattractants, and that these changes in sperm behaviour are highly consistent with observed patterns of gamete preferences, fertilization and larval survival. Together, this integrated series of experiments reveals that the behaviour of sperm is fine-tuned to respond differentially to the chemical signals emitted from different conspecific eggs, and that these choices have measurable fitness benefits.
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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.