Evidence map›Paper›PMID 27807252›Full record

ArticleBiology letters2016

Queen reproductive tract secretions enhance sperm motility in ants.

Joanito Liberti, Boris Baer, Jacobus J Boomsma

Open access · hybridAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Biology letters, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
10citing papers in PubMed
1.5field-weighted citation impact, top 14% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

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.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

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.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

10 citing papers in PubMed, 15 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. The role of female reproductive fluid in sperm competition.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020
    Review
  8. Post-ejaculatory modifications to sperm (PEMS).Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2020
    Review
  9. Protein-Level Interactions as Mediators of Sexual Conflict in Ants.Molecular & cellular proteomics : MCP · 2019
    Article
  10. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.

Joanito LibertiCentre for Social Evolution, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark joanito.liberti@bio.ku.dk.ORCID 0000-0002-4158-2591
Boris BaerCentre for Integrative Bee Research (CIBER), The University of Western Australia, Bayliss Building M316, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia.
Jacobus J BoomsmaCentre for Social Evolution, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark jjboomsma@bio.ku.dk.
University of Copenhagen · DKThe University of Western Australia · AU

Funding

European Research Council 323085
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Queens of Acromyrmex leaf-cutting ants store sperm of multiple males after a single mating flight, and never remate even though they may live for decades and lay tens of thousands of eggs. Sperm of different males are initially transferred to the bursa copulatrix and compete for access to the long-term storage organ of queens, but the factors determining storage success or failure have never been studied. We used in vitro experiments to show that reproductive tract secretions of Acromyrmex echinatior queens increase sperm swimming performance by at least 50% without discriminating between sperm of brothers and unrelated males. Indiscriminate female-induced sperm chemokinesis makes the likelihood of storage directly dependent on initial sperm viability and thus provides a simple mechanism to secure maximal possible reproductive success of queens, provided that initial sperm motility is an accurate predictor of viability during later egg fertilization.

Indexed as

AnimalsAntsFemaleGenitalia, FemaleIn Vitro TechniquesMaleSpermatozoaSperm Motilitycryptic female choicesexual selectionsocial insectssperm competitionsperm motility

Identifiers

PMID27807252
PMCPMC5134051
OpenAlexW2546687016

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.