ArticleBMC evolutionary biology2016
Sperm competition-induced plasticity in the speed of spermatogenesis.
Article in BMC evolutionary biology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- One probe fits all: a highly customizable modular RNA in situ hybridization platform expanding the application of SABER DNA probes.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2025Article
- Mating strategy predicts gene presence/absence patterns in a genus of simultaneously hermaphroditic flatworms.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2022Article
- Evolution of sex allocation plasticity in a hermaphroditic flatworm genus.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2022Article
- Frequent origins of traumatic insemination involve convergent shifts in sperm and genital morphology.Evolution letters · 2022Article
- Sperm bauplan and function and underlying processes of sperm formation and selection.Physiological reviews · 2022Review
- Faster Rates of Molecular Sequence Evolution in Reproduction-Related Genes and in Species with Hypodermic Sperm Morphologies.Molecular biology and evolution · 2021Article
- Seminal fluid and accessory male investment in sperm competition.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Review
- Sperm Differentiation: The Role of Trafficking of Proteins.International journal of molecular sciences · 2020Review
- Variation in sex allocation plasticity in three closely related flatworm species.Ecology and evolution · 2020Article
- Sperm morphology and count vary with fine-scale changes in local density in a wild lizard population.Oecologia · 2019Article
- Article
- Genetic and environmental variation in transcriptional expression of seminal fluid proteins.Heredity · 2019Article
- The regenerative flatworm Macrostomum lignano, a model organism with high experimental potential.The International journal of developmental biology · 2018Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSperm competition between rival ejaculates over the fertilization of ova typically selects for the production of large numbers of sperm. An obvious way to increase sperm production is to increase testis size, and most empirical work has focussed on this parameter. Adaptive plasticity in sperm production rate could also arise due to variation in the speed with which each spermatozoon is produced, but whether animals can respond to relevant environmental conditions by modulating the kinetics of spermatogenesis in this way has not been experimentally investigated.
resultsHere we demonstrate that the simultaneously hermaphroditic flatworm Macrostomum lignano exhibits substantial plasticity in the speed of spermatogenesis, depending on the social context: worms raised under higher levels of sperm competition produce sperm faster.
conclusionsOur findings overturn the prevailing view that the speed of spermatogenesis is a static property of a genotype, and demonstrate the profound impact that social environmental conditions can exert upon a key developmental process. We thus identify, to our knowledge, a novel mechanism through which sperm production rate is maximised under sperm competition.
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