TY - JOUR
T1 - Strategic ejaculation in simultaneously hermaphroditic land snails
T2 - More sperm into virgin mates
AU - Kimura, Kazuki
AU - Chiba, Satoshi
N1 - Funding Information:
We express our sincere gratitude to T. Kazama for help with the experimental work and to Y. Kameda, T. Hirano, and K. Shibuya for collecting materials. We are also grateful to three anonymous referees for improving the manuscript. This study was financially supported by The Global COE Program J03 (Ecosystem management adapting to global change) of the MEXT, Japan.
PY - 2013/12/5
Y1 - 2013/12/5
N2 - Background: It has been theorised that sperm competition promotes the strategic usage of costly sperm. Although sperm competition is thought to be an important driving force of reproductive traits in simultaneous hermaphrodites as well as in species with separate sexes, empirical studies on strategic ejaculation in simultaneous hermaphrodites are scarce. Results: In the present study, we tested whether the simultaneously hermaphroditic land snail Euhadra quaesita adjusts the number of sperm donated according to the condition of the mate and whether the pattern of strategic ejaculation is in line with previously suggested theories. We found that individuals donated much more sperm when they copulated with a virgin mate than when they copulated with a non-virgin. Conclusion: The virgin-biased pattern of ejaculation matches the theoretical prediction and suggests that sperm competition significantly influence the reproductive traits of simultaneously hermaphroditic land snails.
AB - Background: It has been theorised that sperm competition promotes the strategic usage of costly sperm. Although sperm competition is thought to be an important driving force of reproductive traits in simultaneous hermaphrodites as well as in species with separate sexes, empirical studies on strategic ejaculation in simultaneous hermaphrodites are scarce. Results: In the present study, we tested whether the simultaneously hermaphroditic land snail Euhadra quaesita adjusts the number of sperm donated according to the condition of the mate and whether the pattern of strategic ejaculation is in line with previously suggested theories. We found that individuals donated much more sperm when they copulated with a virgin mate than when they copulated with a non-virgin. Conclusion: The virgin-biased pattern of ejaculation matches the theoretical prediction and suggests that sperm competition significantly influence the reproductive traits of simultaneously hermaphroditic land snails.
KW - Land snails
KW - Simultaneous hermaphrodites
KW - Sperm allocation
KW - Sperm competition
KW - Strategic ejaculation
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U2 - 10.1186/1471-2148-13-264
DO - 10.1186/1471-2148-13-264
M3 - Article
C2 - 24304518
AN - SCOPUS:84889052219
SN - 1471-2148
VL - 13
JO - BMC Evolutionary Biology
JF - BMC Evolutionary Biology
IS - 1
M1 - 264
ER -