ArticleJournal of evolutionary biology2016
Copulatory plugs inhibit the reproductive success of rival males.
Article in Journal of 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, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- A male-biased hypothalamic circuit modulates postmating sleep suppression in mice.Science advances · 2026Article
- A Male Expressed Copulatory Plug Increases Female Fertility inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Mating system variation and gene expression in the male reproductive tract of Peromyscus mice.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Genetic disruption of the baculum compromises the ability of male mice to copulate.PLoS genetics · 2025Article
- Indirect evidence of an early mating advantage in wild cooperatively breeding male banded mongooses.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Sperm competition intensity shapes divergence in both sperm morphology and reproductive genes across murine rodents.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2024Article
- Article
- The baculum affects paternity success of first but not second males in house mouse sperm competition.BMC ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Male-derived copulatory plugs enhance implantation success in female Mus musculus.Biology of reproduction · 2021Article
- Seminal fluid and accessory male investment in sperm competition.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Review
- Revealing mechanisms of mating plug function under sexual selection.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Seminal vesicle secretory protein 7, PATE4, is not required for sperm function but for copulatory plug formation to ensure fecundity†.Biology of reproduction · 2019Article
- De novo transcriptome sequencing and analysis of male and female swimming crab (Portunus trituberculatus) reproductive systems during mating embrace (stage II).BMC genetics · 2018Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Ejaculated proteins play important roles in reproductive fitness. In many species, seminal fluid coagulates and forms what has been referred to as a copulatory plug in the female's reproductive tract. In mice, previous work demonstrated that knockout males missing a key seminal fluid protein were unable to form a plug and less successful at siring litters in noncompetitive matings (one female, one male), probably the result of reduced sperm transport or insufficient stimulation of the female. Here, we extend these previous studies to competitive matings (one female, two males) and make two key insights. First, when first males were unable to form a plug, they lost almost all paternity to second males to mate. Thus, the copulatory plugs of second males could not rescue the reduced fertility of first males. Second, we showed that the copulatory plug of first males effectively blocked fertilization by second males, even if first males were vasectomized. Taken together, our experiments demonstrated that first males lost almost all paternity if they never formed a plug. We discuss our results in the context of natural populations, where in spite of the strong effects seen here, pregnant female mice regularly carry litters fertilized by more than one male.
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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.