Evidence map›Paper›PMID 31245887›Full record

ArticleJournal of evolutionary biology2019

Sperm morphology and evidence for sperm competition among parrots.

Luisana Carballo, Alessandra Battistotti, Kim Teltscher, Michael Lierz, Andreas Bublat, Mihai Valcu, Bart Kempenaers

Open access · bronzeAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of evolutionary biology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
6citing papers in PubMed
3.2field-weighted citation impact, top 9% 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

6 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Review
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Postcopulatory sexual selection is associated with sperm aggregate quality inBehavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology
    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

7 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.

Luisana CarballoDepartment of Behavioural Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen, Germany.ORCID 0000-0001-5191-8012
Alessandra BattistottiDepartment of Behavioural Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen, Germany.
Kim TeltscherDepartment of Behavioural Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen, Germany.
Michael LierzClinic for Birds, Reptiles, Amphibians and Fish, Justus-Liebig University, Giessen, Germany.
Andreas BublatClinic for Birds, Reptiles, Amphibians and Fish, Justus-Liebig University, Giessen, Germany.
Mihai ValcuDepartment of Behavioural Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen, Germany.
Bart KempenaersDepartment of Behavioural Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen, Germany.
Max Planck Institute for Ornithology · DEJustus-Liebig-Universität Gießen · DEUniversity of Padua · IT

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Sperm competition is an important component of post-copulatory sexual selection that has shaped the evolution of sperm morphology. Previous studies have reported that sperm competition has a concurrently directional and stabilizing effect on sperm size. For example, bird species that show higher levels of extrapair paternity and larger testes (proxies for the intensity of sperm competition) have longer sperm and lower coefficients of variation in sperm length, both within and between males. For this reason, these sperm traits have been proposed as indexes to estimate the level of sperm competition in species for which other measures are not available. The relationship between sperm competition and sperm morphology has been explored mostly for bird species that breed in temperate zones, with the main focus on passerine birds. We measured sperm morphology in 62 parrot species that breed mainly in the tropics and related variation in sperm length to life-history traits potentially indicative of the level of sperm competition. We showed that sperm length negatively correlated with the within-male coefficient of variation in sperm length and positively with testes mass. We also showed that sperm is longer in sexually dichromatic and in gregarious species. Our results support the general validity of the hypothesis that sperm competition drives variation in sperm morphology. Our analyses suggest that post-copulatory sexual selection is also important in tropical species, with more intense sperm competition among sexually dichromatic species and among species that breed at higher densities.

Indexed as

AnimalsBehavior, AnimalClutch SizeFemaleMaleParrotsPhylogenySex FactorsSpecies SpecificitySpermatozoaparrotspost-copulatory sexual selectionsperm competitionsperm morphology

Identifiers

PMID31245887
PMCPMC6852422
OpenAlexW2955937183

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY-NC
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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.