ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2018
Phenotypic plasticity in genitalia: baculum shape responds to sperm competition risk in house mice.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 24 citations in OpenAlex.
- Testing for Functional Adaptation in a Genital Bone: Baculum Size, Shape, and Microstructure Show Little Plastic Response to Mating Across Five Rodent Species.Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- Does a Father's Social Environment Influence Their Sons' Sperm Sex Ratio? Potential for the Epigenetic Transmission of a Sex-Allocating Mechanism.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Genetic disruption of the baculum compromises the ability of male mice to copulate.PLoS genetics · 2025Article
- No evidence for an up-regulation of female immune function in response to elevated risk of sexual conflict.Biology letters · 2024Article
- Male responses to sperm competition risk associated with increased macronutrient intake and reduced lifespan.Biology letters · 2023Article
- Intergenerational response to sperm competition risk in an invasive mammal.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Hearing, touching, and multisensory integration during mate choice.Frontiers in neural circuits · 2022Review
- The baculum affects paternity success of first but not second males in house mouse sperm competition.BMC ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Quantifying variation in female internal genitalia: no evidence for plasticity in response to sexual conflict risk in a seed beetle.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Baculum shape and paternity success in house mice: evidence for genital coevolution.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Of mice and women: advances in mammalian sperm competition with a focus on the female perspective.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Review
- Postcopulatory sexual selection and the evolution of shape complexity in the carnivoran baculum.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Sperm sex ratio adjustment in a mammal: perceived male competition leads to elevated proportions of female-producing sperm.Biology letters · 2020Article
- Exposure to high male density causes maternal stress and female-biased sex ratios in a mammal.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- A 3D journey on virtual surfaces and inner structure of ossa genitalia in Primates by means of a non-invasive imaging tool.PloS one · 2020Article
- Exposure to male-dominated environments during development influences sperm sex ratios at sexual maturity.Evolution letters · 2019Article
- Phenotypic plasticity in genitalia: baculum shape responds to sperm competition risk in house mice.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Males are known to adjust their expenditure on testes growth and sperm production in response to sperm competition risk. Genital morphology can also contribute to competitive fertilization success but whether male genital morphology can respond plastically to the sperm competition environment has received little attention. Here, we exposed male house mice to two different sperm competition environments during their sexual development and quantified phenotypic plasticity in baculum morphology. The sperm competition environment generated plasticity in body growth. Males maturing under sperm competition risk were larger and heavier than males maturing under no sperm competition risk. We used a landmark-based geometric morphometric approach to measure baculum size and shape. Independent of variation in body size, males maintained under risk of sperm competition had a relatively thicker and more distally extended baculum bulb compared with males maintained under no sperm competition risk. Plasticity in baculum shape paralleled evolutionary responses to selection from sperm competition reported in previous studies of house mice. Our findings provide experimental evidence of socially mediated phenotypic plasticity in male genitalia.
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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.