TESTIS WEIGHT, BODY-WEIGHT AND BREEDING SYSTEM IN PRIMATES
TESTIS WEIGHT, BODY-WEIGHT AND BREEDING SYSTEM IN PRIMATES
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DOI：
10.1038/293055a0
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发表时间：
1981-01-01
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
SHORT, RV
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
HARCOURT, AH;HARVEY, PH;SHORT, RV
人们早就知道，灵长类动物的睾丸重量与体重的比例差别很大。最近有人提出，在三种类人猿中，睾丸重量的差异与它们不同的繁殖制度有关。雄性大猩猩和红毛猩猩很少交配，当雌性进入发情期时，通常只与一只雄性交配。然而，在黑猩猩中，几只雄性经常与发情的雌性交配，因此每只雄性必须储存足够的精子来与其他雄性的精子竞争。因此，对于黑猩猩，我们假设选择将有利于能够储存最多精子的雄性；因此，黑猩猩的生精组织的体积和睾丸的大小都比大猩猩或猩猩大得多。如果这是正确的，这就意味着，与单雄性繁殖系统的灵长类动物相比，每只发情的雌性都有一个以上的雄性交配，它们的睾丸相对于体重应该更大。我们已经在很多灵长类动物身上测试了这一预测，结果支持了这一假设。因此，睾丸的相对大小可能为研究灵长类物种的繁殖系统提供了有价值的线索。
It has long been known that primate species differ greatly in the weight of their testes relative to body weight1. Recently it has been suggested that among the three species of Pongidae (the great apes), the disparity in testes weights is associated with their different breeding systems2–4. Male gorillas and orangutans copulate infrequently, and when a female comes into oestrus she normally mates with only one male. However, in the chimpanzee, several males mate frequently with the oestrous females, so that each male has to deposit enough sperm to compete with the presence of sperm from other males. For the chimpanzee, therefore, we hypothesize that selection will favour the male that can deposit the largest number of sperm; thus the volume of spermatogenic tissue and hence testis size is far greater in the chimpanzee than in the gorilla or orangutan. If this is correct, it implies that primates in which more than one male mates with each oestrous female should have larger testes relative to their body weight than those with single-male breeding systems. We have tested this prediction across a wide range of primates, and the results support the hypothesis. The relative size of testes may, therefore, provide a valuable clue to the breeding system of a primate species.